[Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

[chagnon at pubcom.com]

David wrote:

“ In the “wild” a PDF that has text, a set reading order, and tags is extremely rare. “

 

Some of us are working to make these “wild” untagged or mis-tagged PDFs a rarity!

 

It’s not the PDF technology that’s at fault; it’s the authors who don’t know how to make an accessible Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or InDesign document…and then export that to a crappy inaccessible PDF.

 

Just a small amount of training can teach content creators how to make their PDFs accessible, and when they do, the PDFs are gorgeous for everyone.

 

EPUBs have their shortcomings: for one, the visual presentation is ugly. No, it’s downright deadly. Since good visual design is needed to convey information to those who are sighted, EPUB isn’t good enough at this time to meet everyone’s needs. 

 

Second, fixed-layout EPUBs are still not fully accessible, tables are not fully accessible, graphics have their shortcomings. EPUB is still a very rough, primitive technology that hopefully will improve in the future.

 

This year’s AHG Conference will have several sessions on accessible PDFs.

*	Rob Haverty from Adobe will have several sessions on PDFs, including a pre-conference hands-on workshop for remediating PDFs. See the class listing at https://accessinghigherground.org/pdf-train-the-trainer-and-introduction-to-pdf-accessibility/ 
*	I’ll have a pre-conference hands-on workshop in making accessible PDFs from InDesign. https://accessinghigherground.org/accessible-adobe-indesign-layouts-to-produce-accessible-pdfs-and-epubs/ 
*	And other PDF topics are covered throughout the conference. https://accessinghigherground.org/conference-schedule/ 

 

Looking forward to seeing many of you at AHG in November!

 

But don’t blame the PDF technology…it’s the authors who are dropping the PDF ball.

— — —

Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO  |   <mailto:Bevi at PubCom.com> Bevi at PubCom.com 

— — —

PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing

consulting • training • development • design • sec. 508 services

Upcoming classes at  <http://www.pubcom.com/classes> www.PubCom.com/classes 

— — —

 <https://mailchi.mp/ff5bd323ea45/newsletter-accessibility-fonts-design-upcoming-classes-2901237> Latest blog-newsletter – Accessibility Tips at  <http://www.PubCom.com/blog> www.PubCom.com/blog 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Schwarte, David M.
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2018 2:04 PM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

 

Hello david,

 

Thanks for stating what I was thinking so well.  In the “wild” a PDF that has text, a set reading order, and tags is extremely rare.  So rare that I assume none of these features are there and proceed with opening the PDF as if it were image-only.  Long-term this is faster and less labor intensive.  Remediating documents is not in my job description, so spending time in testing accessibility and fixing issues is essentially a hobby.  In comparison, an imperfect ePub is a vast improvement.  

 

David Schwarte

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of David Andrews
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 10:55 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

 

No one is going to do all this conversion and hand-holding for them when they get out of academia. It would seem prudent to me to teach them how to deal with the materials that are available.

I know ePub is a change for people, but 15 or 20 years ago, so were PDF's and people kicked and screamed.  ePub's offer a richer, and inherently more accessible experience over PDF's.  There is still some growing that needs to be done by tools, but they have the potential to be substantially better!

Dave


At 08:46 AM 8/29/2018, you wrote:

Same here.  For most of them, navigating a PDF is new to them, as surprising as that might be.  Not all young people are tech enthusiasts, as is commonly believed, so I am trying to put the least amount of stress on them as possible.


On Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 9:44 AM Susan Kelmer < Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu <mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu> > wrote:

Andrea, this is basically what we do with Bookshare files.  Most of my sighted students have no interest in learning to navigate a bookshare file, so we convert to word, add in page numbers and heading levels (because those do not exist or are poorly done in most bookshare files) and then convert word to PDF, or just give the student the word files.

 

Isn’t it amazing the hoops we jump through for your students?  This is also why I am so angry about publishers finding yet another few hoops we have to jump through to get what our students need.  Why are they making things more difficult?

 

Susan Kelmer

Alternate Format Production Program Manager

Disability Services

University of Colorado Boulder

303-735-4836

 

 

 

From: athen-list < athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Andrea L. Dietrich

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 7:03 AM

To: Access Technology Higher Education Network < athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >

Subject: Re: [Athen] Converting EPUB to PDF

 

I use a free program called Calibre (also available in a “portable” version in case you don’t have the ability to install software on your computers yourself). It’s designed as a general ebook management program, but it has really good conversion capabilities. The only issues I’ve had with epub to PDF are that sometimes the conversion will divide pages in odd places, and that there are usually no original page numbers to correspond to the hard copy of the book.

 

Depending on your time constraints, you might want to convert the epub to .docx, add page breaks manually in Word, and then convert that file to PDF so that you can “recreate” the original publisher layout for the book, but obviously that’s more time-consuming.

 

Good luck!

 

-Andi :) 

 

--------------------------

Andrea Dietrich 

Cornell University 

Student Disability Services 

Cornell Health, Level 5

110 Ho Plaza

Ithaca, NY 14853 

http://sds.cornell.edu <http://sds.cornell.edu/> 

 

Tel. 607.254.4545 

Fax. 607.255.1562

 

Office Hours: 

Monday-Thursday 8:15AM-4:45PM 

Friday 8:15AM-4:00PM

 

From: athen-list < athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Robert Spangler

Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 8:54 AM

To: Access Technology Higher Education Network < athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto: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> 

Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023

Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)

University of Dayton  | 300 College Park  |  Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302 

Phone: 937-229-2066

Fax: 937-229-3270

Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing)

Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning

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-- 
Robert Spangler
Disability Services Technical Support Specialist
rspangler1 at udayton.edu <mailto:rspangler1 at udayton.edu> 
Office of Learning Resources (OLR) - RL 023
Ryan C. Harris Learning & Teaching Center (LTC)
University of Dayton  | 300 College Park  |  Dayton, Ohio 45469-1302 
Phone: 937-229-2066
Fax: 937-229-3270
Ohio Relay: 711 (available for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing)
Web Site: http://go.udayton.edu/learning

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