[Athen] postscript Accessibility questions

[Sean Keegan]

Hi Terri,
 
My understanding is that PostScript is a programming language for describing
how a page should "look".  PDF, for instance, uses a subset of the
PostScript language for fonts, etc.  For the most part, PDF has become the
manner to display print information as opposed to PS.
 
I am not aware of any assistive tech that "reads" PostScript directly.  You
could use something like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to open a PS file,
but the result would be the visual rendering of what the PS code says to
"do".
 
In terms of processing content for a student, I think you have a bit more
flexibility with today's PDF technology than with PostScript, but I am going
to have to defer to others for their thoughts and opinions as I do not have
much experience with PostScript itself.
 
Take care,
Sean

  _____  

From: Terri Hedgpeth [mailto:terrih at asu.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 4:23 PM
To: skeegan at htctu.net; Access Technologists in Higher Education Network
Subject: RE: [Athen] postscript Accessibility questions



Sean and all,

What about a post script file? What tool(s) can a student who is blind use
to convert a post script file into a readable form and maintain the format?

Thanks,

Terri

 

 

Dr. Terri Hedgpeth

Academic Research Professional

CUbiC #376, iCare

(480) 727-8133 V

(480) 965-1885 Fax

CUbiC.asu.edu

http://www.fulton.asu.edu/fulton/

 

  _____  

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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