[Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

[George Kerscher]

Hello,
 
At the recent AHEAD conference, there was a booth comparing the reading experience between PDF and EPUB. By far, the people saw the advantages of the modern EPUB format.
 
In the W3C, the standards setting body, EPUB is being developed as the best mechanism for digital publishing. There is also the EPUB Accessibility Conformance and Discovery specification, which is being widely adopted. There is also the Accessibility Checker for EPUB (Ace by DAISY), which helps the publishers ensure their publications are fully accessible. The current recommendation is WCAG AA for materials in education. We also recommend that the publishers provide detailed descriptions of graphical content that conveys meaningful information to students.
 
There will be a track on digital publishing at the upcoming AHG conference. Plus I will encourage the ATN and others to post short educational articles to help folks here and elsewhere  learn about the many advantages of EPUB.
 
For now, Here are two links to information about Reading Apps used for reading EPUB, because of course, not only must the content be accessible, but the Reading App used to read it must be accessible. We have been testing with a wide range of Assistive Technology.
 
 
Here is the list of reading Apps at a high level:
https://inclusivepublishing.org/blog/june-2018-epub-reading-apps-accessibility-support/
 
and here is the formal testing results of many, many apps.
http://epubtest.org/testsuite/accessibility/
 
If I can be of any help, even helping a student identify a Reading App and AT combination, I would be happy to help.
 
Best
George
 
George Kerscher Ph.D.
-In our Information Age, access to information is a fundamental human right.
Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium
http://www.daisy.org
Senior Advisor, Global Literacy, Benetech
http://www.benetech.org
President, International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) 
http://www.idpf.org
Member of the National Museum and Library Services  Board (IMLS)
http://www.imls.gov
Chair Steering Council Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a division of the W3C 
http://www.w3c.org/wai 
Phone: +1 406/549-4687
Cell:+1 406/544-2466 
Email: kerscher at montana.com
 
 
From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Robert Spangler
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 6:54 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF
 
Hello, is it possible to convert from EPUB to PDF and, if so, how would I go about doing it?  We distribute PDFs only to our students unless otherwise requested, but a publisher on AccessText is stating that Epub is the only option available from them.


 
-- 
Robert Spangler
Disability Services Technical Support Specialist
rspangler1 at udayton.edu <mailto:rspangler1 at udayton.edu> 
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