[access-uk] Re: FW: Jamal's PDF Masterpiece

This article is very very good indeed.  It aught to be read not simply because 
of the details it gives to the inner workings of PDFs, but also the context 
including colaboration of Adobe with outsiders in the access technology world, 
as well as screen reader developers.

One or two questions could be asked here on list arising from this article.

1.  With reference to PDFs which contain only scanned images of documents, how 
do people go about extracting useful readable text from these?  I know it is 
possible.

2.  Does anyone know of tutorials, as well as reference material, for helping 
people to use Acrobat Reader more effectively?

We have all from time to time come across PDFs which are simply not accessable 
through them being image only documents, or just poorly produced and not marked 
up.  In fact the latter, accessible markup, is rarely done in my experience.  
Is it just laziness on the part of media boys and girls, or more likely 
economics;  no one can spare the time to actually do it?

One thing I have always been certain of is that Adobe has certainly done a lot, 
for whatever reason, to make this, originally, unaccessable format usable by 
us.  Certainly, as always, there's room for improvement, i.e. a message when 
the page processing has finished?  One thing is certain:  people should not so 
freely criticise Adobe and the PDF format, not without reading this article 
first!  AS the great man said, "Don't criticise what you don't understand."

Just like the work being done in web development - CSS, XHTML, and maybe, 
eventually, SVG, a standard that serves all is definetly the way to go, not a 
perpetual craving for the old standards, and separate documents and sperate 
wbsites for the poor blind.

And here is the link to the article again.

http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw060604

Ray

Personal emails:  Email me at
mailto:ray-48@xxxxxxxx



** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe]
** If this link doesn't work then send a message to:
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
** and in the Subject line type
** unsubscribe
** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the
** immediately-following link:-
** [mailto:access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq]
** or send a message, to
** access-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq

Other related posts: