[Athen] Sending signed PDFs

[Bossley, Pete]

A properly tagged and remediated PDF should have no spacing issues in play since the tag structure would have been remediated to eliminate these kinds of issues. JAWS and NVDA can read these just fine, and even the latest version of Adobe Reader on OSX and Voice Over now respects tag structure.
Users really shouldn't want to use the JAWS OCR feature, it should be something of a last resort. My argument both as an accessibility professional and a blind user again is that documents should be tagged and structured accessibly so I should have no need to use an OCR feature.
A valid argument could certainly be made for the signature being decorative although I would in turn argue as a screen reader user that knowing that an image of a physical signature is useful information to have



[The Ohio State University]
Peter Bossley
Accessibility Analyst
Office of the CIO
017 Telecommunications Network Center, 320 W. 8th Ave, Columbus, OH 43201
614-292-8571 Office
bossley.5 at osu.edu<mailto:bossley.5 at osu.edu> ocio.osu.edu<http://ocio.osu.edu/>
________________________________

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Joshua Hori
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 8:47 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sending signed PDFs

Not sure the alt text is needed for the signature as their name will be posted on the bottom anyways. A blank alt would work as it's a decorative item to those with screenreaders.

Word and PDF is probably best as most visually disabled users toss PDF attachments in the trash. I can't get my users to use the OCR built into JAWS due to the issues present with image PDF's, searchable PDF's, and tagged PDFs. JAWS reads image PDF's but doesn't do anything for the searchable and tagged, even if they're messed up with spacing between characters.

The best possible practice would be to make a memo site and post them all there with an automated email notifying users of memo updates and quick search capabilities. Memos get lost too easily in emails.

Joshua

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Bossley, Pete
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 12:31 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sending signed PDFs

Ideally the PDF with the signature would be accessible, tagged, with good structure; and the signature would be an image with appropriate alt text. E.g. Peter Bossley's signature.



From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Jiatyan Chen
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2016 12:13 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sending signed PDFs

Unless you have extra staff or mechanical way to convert files, the simplest way for the central office is to post the Word (unsigned, with correct structure) and the PDF (signed and scanned) together.  Least amount of work those folks have to learn/do = easiest way to convince them to do it.

--
Jiatyan Chen

On 2016 Jul 12, at 08:34, Joseph Sherman <Joseph.Sherman at cuny.edu<mailto:Joseph.Sherman at cuny.edu>> wrote:

Our central office has a habit of sending out signed memos generated in Word, signed, scanned as PDF, and emailed or posted. What is best practice for accessibility? Should they run make accessible on the scan to OCR and auto tag the PDF? Or have two PDF versions, one not signed but generated from Word with tags? Or is there a better option?
Joseph

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