[Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

[Top Tech Tidbits]

All of my 25+ years of experience in coding HTML and CSS as well as all of my experience with document remediation for accessibility fully supports what Steve has outlined below. Hope this helps. 😊

 

Aaron Di Blasi, PMP

Publisher, Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday
The Week's News in Adaptive Technology

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2022 2:25 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

I don’t advocate for any document format, but I do advocate for accurate information about document formats because so much incorrect information gets spread around, mostly by people who have not done any research into the topic. I do research on a daily basis and have done for 17 years.

 

I don’t even understand what you mean by “advocating for PDF is presently equivalent to advocating that no STEM articles are accessible”. As I have already said several times, the accessibility of a PDF is at least as good as the source document and usually better.

 

HTML is undoubtedly the most accessible document format, but it is not suitable for certain use cases. For instance, HTML does not provide any method of digital rights management, which PDF does. It cannot be archived in a form that cannot be edited, which PDF can. Also, many content authors say they do not have the skills or facilities to create HTML content.

 

I don’t know why you refer to PDFs as being beautiful, because you don’t create content as PDF. Any beauty comes from the source document, such as Word. And suggesting that minimal care is required to create accessible HTML could not be more wrong, unless you are talking about trivial documents.

 

Steve

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of John Gardner
Sent: 10 September 2022 17:37
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

Steve, please understand that advocating for PDF is presently equivalent to advocating that no STEM articles are accessible. I am no expert in this area, but I do believe that with minimal care, html can be created so that everything is accessible. Perhaps not as beautiful as PDF, but I am unaware of anything that cannot be presented in html. So why not advocate for html and point out areas where it needs improvement?

John

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2022 3:24 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

I have no experience of dealing with maths in any document format. I know people who do implement it in PDF, but I don’t know how they do it.

 

There are many types of content and many aspects of accessibility, so a full assessment of all them in all the different document formats would be a substantial piece of work. And some people never encounter some content types, so some shortcomings of a particular document format may not matter to them.

 

For instance, in 17 years of doing document remediation, I have never encountered maths, physics or chemical formulae, but I know someone who deals with exam papers who does hundreds of such PDFs every year. We do a lot of annual financial reports in which every page has a unique, complex layout and dozens of charts, graphs, flowcharts, org charts etc., but some people in the education sector may never have to work on documents like this.

 

Forms are one type of content that PDF can handle very well (if you know what you are doing), but Word handles extremely badly regardless of what you do.

 

For people who need to use alternative colour themes, Adobe Reader’s colour substitution options for the text and background colours are far better than those in Word.

 

For people with low vision, PDF allows reflow options that don’t exist in Word. This means that the zoom level can be increased without limit without a horizontal scrollbar appearing, so you only need to scroll in one direction. Adobe Reader has a basic reflow capability, while the VIP PDF Reader supports reflow even better. The nearest feature that Word has is the Web Layout, but horizontal scrolling is necessary even at low levels of magnification.

 

Steve

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of John Gardner
Sent: 09 September 2022 23:50
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

Steve, Math can be accessible in Word. How do you make math accessible in PDF?

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Steve Green
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 3:36 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

I don’t agree with Susan’s assessment, other than the article is too short to consider all the aspects of what is a large topic. However, I didn’t see anything that I would consider to be incorrect.

 

I also think that Susan has set up a false dichotomy between the ease of creating a small, simple accessible Word document and remediating a PDF that was exported from an inaccessible source file. When exporting from Word, the resulting PDF will be at least as accessible as the Word file and in some ways it will be more accessible. It won’t be less accessible.

 

Bear in mind that you never create a document as a PDF. It always starts as some other document format, such as Word, PowerPoint, InDesign etc. If you know how to make the source document accessible and you are happy with that level of accessibility, the resulting PDF will not need any remediation in Acrobat.

 

If you want to, you can do further remediation in Acrobat such that the PDF achieves a higher level of accessibility than is possible in the source document format. Even if you have done everything possible in Word, you may be able to make the document even more accessible as a PDF, depending on what the content is.

 

Steve Green

Managing Director

Test Partners Ltd

 

 

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer
Sent: 09 September 2022 20:36
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> >
Subject: Re: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

Well, there is some glaring misinformation in there, and definitely too short a piece to be truly useful.

 

Remediating a PDF is difficult and time-consuming, while creating a good quality accessible WORD document is easy and only takes a few steps. That good quality Word file, which only took a few minutes to create properly, can then be output to multiple formats, including tagged PDF and HTML.

 

I am not sure the author really understands what he is talking about.  

 

 

Susan Kelmer 

Alternate Format Production Program Manager

Disability Services

Health and Wellness Services

T 303 735 4836

 <http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices> www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices 

 

 



 

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> > On Behalf Of Adina Mulliken
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2022 12:35 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu <mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu> 
Subject: [Athen] article advocating for PDFs in College & Research Libraries News

 

Sorry, this article might not be the best thing to share on a Friday afternoon, but here it is.   I’m not agreeing with the article.  

 

Chee, M., & Weaver, K. (2022). The great PDF debate: Accessible or impossible?. College & Research Libraries News, 83(8), 363. doi: <https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.83.8.363> https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.83.8.363


At least the article cites a couple of articles that advocate a different view.

 

Adina

 

Adina Mulliken

Associate Professor, Librarian Silberman Social Work and Urban Public Health Library

Hunter College, City University of New York

2180 3rd Ave. New York, NY

Phone 212-396-7665

Pronouns she/her

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