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Ensuring PDF Accessibility: Legislation, Strategies, and Resources for Success

This resource provides a comprehensive overview of the importance of PDF accessibility in light of legislation such as the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). It discusses the challenges of scanned PDFs, the necessity for new documents to be created with accessibility in mind, and how to test existing PDFs for compliance. It highlights training opportunities, accessible templates, and external resources to aid in making PDFs accessible. The goal is to foster a culture of accessibility across the campus, reducing barriers for individuals with disabilities while meeting legal requirements.

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Ensuring PDF Accessibility: Legislation, Strategies, and Resources for Success

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Presentation Transcript

  1. PDF Accessibility Lisa Tomalty, ISTltomalty@uwaterloo.ca, x35873

  2. Agenda • Legislation • Culture Change • When PDFs are not accessible (scanned files) • Ensuring New PDFs Are Accessible • Testing Accessibility • Word/PDF Accessibility • Making Existing PDFs Accessible • Questions?

  3. Legislation • Web sites, including PDF files on our web sites published as of January 1, 2012: • Will need to be accessible as per the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act (AODA) by January 1, 2014 (WCAG 2.0 Level A). • PDFs on our web sites must either: • Be accessible or • Have accessible HTML equivalents • Why? • We want to reduce/eliminate barriers faced by people with disabilities • Include whole audience (recruiting/retaining staff, students and faculty) • 57+% computer users are likely to benefit from accessible technology (Forrester Research, 2004) • Legal reasons

  4. Culture Change • How we create documents • Create a culture of thinking “accessibility” at the time of creation(web,Word,PDF,etc.) • Word templates will be made available but • people still need to be aware of how to make documents accessible and how to test for accessibility • Accessibility testing – part of creation just like naming and saving a file

  5. When PDFs are not accessible (scanned files) • PDFs that are scanned files, saved as PDF, are not accessible • PDFs that have been created from an accessible Word file, are generally accessible (but may require tweaks to be fully accessible) • Having an HTML version is the best alternative in some cases

  6. Ensuring New PDFs Are Accessible • Educate campus • Have resource staff to advise and help • Training • In house (SEW course, web pages) • UW/IST may bring in a trainer for ½ day – 1 day training course • Provide templates (training is still required)

  7. Testing Accessibility • Word and Acrobat accessibility testing • Free Testing Tool for individuals: • PAC: http://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-lab/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac.html • Recommended by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) • 14/23 WCAG 2.0 checks • Gives text of what a blind person would hear

  8. Word/PDF Accessibility • A SEW course has been taught on Word/PDF Accessibility • The course notes are at: https://sharepoint.uwaterloo.ca/sites/IST/CS/under SEW Handouts/Web Courses/ Accessible Word and PDF Files

  9. Making Existing PDFs Accessible • Find PDF files on our sites (using internal or external resources) • If not needed anymore, remove from site • Create HTML alternative, OR • Make the PDF files accessible: • Using an external resource for a cost OR • Edit the source (e.g. Word) to make it accessible, convert to PDF, test PDF for accessibility OR • Tag existing PDF, test for accessibility (a lot of work)

  10. Making Existing PDFs Accessible • External Resources: • There are organizations that will scan our sites and make our PDF files accessible for a cost • http://www.accessibilit.com/public/services/ • www.tbase.com • CommonLook (Word, PPT (soon), PDF) • Many others to investigate

  11. Making Existing PDFs Accessible • An accessibility working group has been formed • “The goal of this working group is to identify and address gaps in information, training and support required for uWaterloo staff pertaining to the web accessibility legislation.”

  12. Suggestions • Spread the word about accessibility to the campus community • Encourage training • Writing for the Web, Web Accessibility, PDF Accessibility • Ensure enough resources (staff/outside resources) to meet January 2014 deadline • Plan for testing web sites for accessibility including PDF files

  13. Suggestions • Make templates available • Plan for • removing old PDFs • Making existing PDFs accessible or adding HTML equivalents

  14. Questions? • Thank you ! 

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