EU Accessibility Directive approved
This week the long-awaited EU accessibility directive was approved by the European Parliament. Its aim is to ensure that websites, documents and apps are accessible to everyone interacting with public sector bodies. Once the directive is in force, public sector organisations across the EU…
Metadata, discoverability and accessibility in publishing
The commercial drivers of accessibility metadata… According to the World Bank and the World Health Organisation's World Report on Disability, 2011, some 15% of the world's population (over a billion people) have some form of disability.
Accessible PDF exam papers
Is PDF the ideal format for accessible exam papers?
BISG Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing
Last week the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) launched its Quick Start Guide to Accessible Publishing, providing a comprehensive guide to the essentials of creating accessible ebooks. The guide is available as a free download from the BISG site in, not surprisingly, a highly accessible EPUB as well as, unfortunately, an inaccessible PDF.
PDF accessibility: beyond tagging and screen reader accessibility
The following is a summary of the talk given by Ted Page, at the recent PDF Accessibility Days conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ted Page interview with Olaf Drümmer, PDF Association
It's just over 1 month until the PDF Accessibility Days conference begins in Copenhagen on 12-13 November 2015. In readiness, guest speaker Ted Page was interviewed by Olaf Drümmer on his views around accessible PDF and school exams, which will be the topic of Ted's discussion at the conference.
WebAIM survey finds no significant improvement in PDF accessibility in more than 6 years. Why?
WebAIM recently published it's sixth screen reader user survey. It finds that perceptions of the accessibility of PDFs hasn’t improved significantly in over six years.
PDF is not an inherently inaccessible format
PDF is not an inherently inaccessible format. If you know how, most PDFs can be made as accessible as content in any other format, and in some cases, more so. The real problem is a dearth of relevant skills and know-how.
Over-reliance on automated PDF accessibility checkers
The PDF accessibility checker built into Acrobat Professional (versions 11 onwards) is a useful tool. However, it is important to understand that no automated checker will test the accessibility of a PDF and give you a yes or no answer. I have written about this previously elsewhere,…
PDF background colour bug returns in Acrobat/Reader DC
In December I posted that a long-standing PDF accessibility problem, namely a serious background colour bug, had been eliminated with an update to Acrobat/Adobe Reader 11. However, six months on, and with the release of Acrobat and Reader DC, the bug has returned.