[Athen] PDF Accessibility questions

[Kilcommons,Cath]

Hi All,
I thought it also might be worth mentioning the ability to dock your
View Tags function in the Navigation pane - a work shortcut I learned
from Sean, of course (grin).
Go to View > Navigation Tabs > select Tags, and a separate little window
will appear that has Tabs labeled, "Fields, Tags, Content, Order".  The
Tags tab will be selected.  Using the mouse, drag that tab to the
Navigation pane where the other tabs appear (default tabs are Bookmarks,
Signatures, Pages, Model Tree, Attachments and Comments).  The Tags tab
should then anchor, and will remain available in the Navigation pane
until you reset the tabs.  I find this a very useful customization for
anyone who visually checks for tags and tagging information.
 
Best,
Cath
 
 


________________________________

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Sean Keegan
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 4:04 PM
To: 'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'
Subject: Re: [Athen] PDF Accessibility questions


Hi Kathy,
 
Thanks for the information.  I wanted to distinguish between following a
"standard" vs. making the PDF accessible to AT.   I can see your
challenge not having access to the original documents that may have
begun as MS Word or other word processing files and then attempting to
make everything accessible via Adobe Acrobat.
 
You can add/remove tags to a PDF document without using the
Accessibility Checker.
- Open the untagged PDF document.
- Use the Add Tags to Document option (under Advanced > Accessibility)
 
If there are already tags for the document, then you will just need to
check how the content is organized.  I generally do this with the
TouchUp Reading Order tool.
 
- Turn on the TouchUp Reading Order tool (under Advanced >
Accessibility)
- Visually scan the document for any major overlaps in content of
text/equations on the page.  You can rezone the content using the
reading order palette for content vs. equations/images/etc.
 
If there are equations, these may be initially represented as "Table" or
"Figure - No alternative text exists" after adding tags to the PDF
document.  You can reclassify equations as "Formulas" and then go back
and add alternative text (or leave them classified as Figures and add
the appropriate text description).
 
You can also create tags manually (well, semi-manually) by using the
TouchUp Reading Order tool on a page-by-page basis.  Content that you
zone and then set using the reading order palette automatically gets a
tag created in the Tags tab.
 
Hope this helps.  Let me know if you have tried this and it is not
working.

Take care,
Sean
 
________________________________

From: Kathleen Cahill [mailto:kcahill at MIT.EDU] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:13 PM
To: skeegan at htctu.net; 'Access Technologists in Higher Education
Network'
Subject: RE: [Athen] PDF Accessibility questions



Hi Shawn;

Let me answer your questions below (my answers are in dark purple --
hope it comes through):  

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On
Behalf Of Sean Keegan
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 2:05 PM
To: 'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'
Subject: Re: [Athen] PDF Accessibility questions

Hi Kathy,


> I am working with an MIT department that uses a lot of PDF files and

am

trying to help


> them get the "cleanest" PDF files possible.


Not sure if I quite understand what you mean.  Do you mean a PDF
document

that is "tagged" according to a certain specification or do you mean a
PDF

document that works with assistive computer technology (or a bit of
both)?

My answer:  I mean a PDF document that is tagged in Acrobat so it will
work better with AT.  


> Sometimes, after running the accessibility check, I get an error

message

that "Acrobat


> was unable to make this document accessible because it could not save

page

structure


> (incorrect structure was found in PDF file).  Could not save changes."


Have you ever


> received a similar message and what did you do?


I am assuming that you are referring to the Accessibility Checker in AA
7.

The short answer is that I tend to avoid using the accessibility checker
-

yes, it has gotten better, but it still gives a lot of "You may need to

check this" type responses.  Also, you can get messages like "Provide

Missing Unicode Encodings" and this cannot be fixed from within AA - not

very helpful.

I prefer to save the PDF document as a Text (Accessible) file and then
open

the file in a text editor/word processor.  I spot check the document as
to

where I have concerns with the reading order of the content.  Content
that a

screen-reader may interpret will be identified in brackets "[ ]".

Kathy's answer: That probably won't work very well if I can't use the
accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat 7.0.  Many of these documents
have math notation in them.  I realize that screen readers will not read
the math and science notation but if I'm trying to also apply some
structure to the PDF, I don't know how else do that in Acrobat unless I
use the accessibility checker.  I don't have access to the source
documents for these PDFs.  


> 2.  After running an accessibility check, sometimes I get a message

that

"there are x > number of words with characters that do not map to
Unicode."

....Any possible


> solutions or suggestions on this?


How are you creating your PDF documents?  If I begin in something like
MS

Word (or InDesign) and go to PDF, I do not seem to encounter this issue.


Kathy's answer:  Some of the documents were probably created in Matlab
or Latex, if they have math notation in them.  

I suppose I am asking:  What is your workflow for PDF document creation
for

both text and math-based documents?

Kathy's answer:  Many of the text-based documents were created in MS
Word but probably not with structure.


> 3.  I've also gotten error messages that say, "x number of elements

were

not contained


> within the structure tree."  Say what?


Wow - very helpful message.  I have gotten this once before where some
page

content could not be added to the tagged structure.  It was not
text-based,

so that may have been the problem (AA could not identify what it was).  

Kathy's comment:  Again, this could be due to math/science notation in
the document that Acrobat doesn't know what to do with.  


> 4.  I've also run OCR on a PDF that looked like it was an image only

PDF

with some


> math notation.  When I have run an accessibility check on the

allegedly

OCR'ed file,


> the report says there are no problems, which is hardly the case when

there

is math


> notation.


Hmmm - I am not sure I understand.  Was there text on the page?  Did
that

content get OCR'ed correctly or did nothing get recognized?  Do you have
an

example I can play with?

Kathy's comment:  There was text on the page.  It seems like even after
Paper Capture (OCR) was run in Acrobat, it still retains its
characteristics of an image-only file.  I will email you the file
separately to look at.

It sounds as if you are attempting to create PDF documents containing
math

notation AND have these documents be accessible.  I am not aware of any

assistive computer technologies that can read native math equations
within a

PDF document.  I know that Design Science was interested in doing some
work

on this, but I do not know how far they have progressed.

Kathy's comment:  I realize that screen readers cannot read math
content.  I am trying to get the text part of the PDF to be as
accessible as possible.  The departments that create these documents are
going to need to create descriptive ALT tags that go with the math
notation to make it meaningful, or find some other format.  We are
trying to push the departments to consider MathML but so far, no takers
on a department level. 

Thank you for your help,
Kathy

Take care,

Sean

Sean Keegan

Web Accessibility Instructor

High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges 


-----Original Message-----

From: athen-bounces at athenpro.org [mailto:athen-bounces at athenpro.org] On

Behalf Of Kathleen Cahill

Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 8:32 AM

To: 'Access Technologists in Higher Education Network'

Subject: [Athen] PDF Accessibility questions

Dear Colleagues;

I am working with an MIT department that uses a lot of PDF files and am

trying to help them get the "cleanest" PDF files possible.  I would love
to

get some feedback from those of you who regularly use the Adobe Acrobat
7.0

accessibility checkers and do lots of tagging and alterations of
document

structure.

I have some questions regarding files that originate in Microsoft Office
or

Latex format (full of math notation):

1.  Sometimes, after running the accessibility check, I get an error
message

that "Acrobat was unable to make this document accessible because it
could

not save page structure (incorrect structure was found in PDF file).
Could

not save changes."  Have you ever received a similar message and what
did

you do?

2.  After running an accessibility check, sometimes I get a message that

"there are x number of words with characters that do not map to
Unicode."

Acrobat suggests the user use a different font, recreate the PDF with a

newer version of Distiller or use the latest Adobe Post Script driver to

create a Post Script file, then a new PDF file.  Usually, this error
message

come through on a document with lots of math notation.  Any possible

solutions or suggestions on this?

3.  I've also gotten error messages that say, "x number of elements were
not

contained within the structure tree."  Say what?

4.  I've also run OCR on a PDF that looked like it was an image only PDF

with some math notation.  When I have run an accessibility check on the

allegedly OCR'ed file, the report says there are no problems, which is

hardly the case when there is math notation.

If you have suggestions for me to try or know of any folks at Adobe I
can

contact, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Kathy Cahill

**************************

Kathleen Cahill

MIT ATIC (Adaptive Technology) Lab

77 Mass. Ave. 7-143

Cambridge MA 02139

(617) 253-5111

email: kcahill at mit.edu



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