[jaws-uk] ADOBE PDF - technological discrimination to it's best!
- From: "Mujtaba Merchant" <mujtabam@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <campaigns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 21:09:06 +0530
Hello Concerned'
I write to you from India. I am a late blind and wanted to address this
issue with ADOBE and it's products. I have mailed a few forums on this
regard and they all accept/ agree that this issue I am trying to address is
technological discrimination to it's best!
I would like to take this up directly with ADOBE but as an individual I
don't think that I can go that mile. Hence this email to you, suggested by
one of the members of a mailing list. Hope you will be in a position to
direct this concern to the right ears in ADOBE.
The Concern: "Using Adobe Acrobat, when an author makes the conscious
decision to protect a PDF document, they can choose to add a password,
restrict editing and printing, restrict copying images, text, and other
content, restrict text access for screen readers. Yep, you heard that last
one correctly. Adobe provides authors with the ability to explicitly deny
access to assistive technology. This aberration is clearly marked with a
check box labeled, "Enable text access for screen reader devices for the
visually impaired." I applaud Adobe for taking the lead in creating
accessible electronic documentation by providing access to PDF documents,
but I will never understand the inclusion of an option that gives someone
the ability to decide whether or not accessibility should exist. That check
box should have never been created, and it needs to be removed.
Accessibility is something that should not be decided by a flick of a mouse
button from the hand of a sighted person who doesn't have the first clue as
to why a blind person needs access to a PDF in the first place.
Accessibility should not be optional!"
The above is an extract from the GW Micro website, it explains the scenario
very simply. This is the issue I and many other blind users of PDF files
face one time or the other. We get the PDF file and when we try to open it,
it gives us a message that Alert, document protected to screen reader or
something on the same lines. Added to this their flash player is of another
concern, the menu items are not at all accessible, I keep getting update
alerts almost every week from them but can't get it to update the flash
player because I have no clue what the unlabelled buttons on the update
screen are for. Sighted help is always around in my case but why bother them
on these not so trivial issues that could have been addressed by the product
company itself?
So kindly suggest a way to get this addressed and help me and all of us that
need a break with this technological discrimination.
Thank you for your support!
Sincerely,
Mujtaba Merchant
Bangalore, India
The only disability in life is a BAD ATTITUDE ` Scott Hamilton
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