Beyond the Checkers — What’s REALLY Needed in an Accessible PDF

Scheduled at 9:00 am in Denver 1-3 on Thursday, November 14.

Speaker(s)

• Bevi Chagnon, Designer, Senior Accessibility Trainer, PubCom.com

Session Details

• Length of Session: 2-hr
• Format: Bring-your-own Device Workshop: Adobe Acrobat Pro DC
• Expertise Level: Beginner
• Type of session: General Conference

Summary

AI is changing our world, but even when built into computer software checkers it still can't fully determine if a PDF is fully accessible. A trained, knowledgeable accessibility specialist must look under the hood and check many more details!

Discover the limitations of the most common checkers (such as Adobe and PAC), and how to do a deeper check of a PDFs tag tree and reading orders — the most critical features in an accessible PDF.

Abstract

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions for accessible PDFs. And there's no one software checker that can fully evaluate your PDFs for compliance.

We'll take a look at what the most popular checkers get right — and what they miss and show ways to look deeper into the PDF so that you maximize your documents' accessibility.

You'll learn to: • Use Acrobat’s accessibility checker, preflight, and Axes' PAC checkers • Evaluate the tag tree and reading orders for compliance • Determine what caused the problem in the source document • Decide when it's best to correct shortcomings in the source file (ie, MS Word, etc.), fix it in Acrobat or other software, or send it out to a professional remediation company • Preflight and validate a PDF with the PDF/UA-1 medallion

Keypoints

1. All software checkers miss a lot of accessibility requirements.
2. Review by knowedgeable accessibility staff is crucial to meeting your goals.
3. No one checker software program does everything you need.

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Accessible Course Design, Other, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

Bevi Chagnon

Bevi Chagnon has been active in the standards community for 25 years, and currently is a US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA. With a long career in publishing, she’s an expert for Adobe InDesign, Acrobat, MS Office, and accessibility. She’s a professional educator, award-winning designer, and former faculty member at Washington DC-area colleges/universities. Bevi is a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and a contributor on many forums, including the Adobe Community Forums where she is an invited Community Expert.