Understanding the WCAG 2.x Techniques for Accessible PDFs

Scheduled at 11:15 am in Virtual D on Thursday, November 14.

#40266

Speaker(s)

  • Karen McCall, Accessible Document Design Consultant and Educator, Karlen Communications

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 1-hr
  • Format: Lecture
  • Expertise Level: Intermediate
  • Type of session: General Conference

Summary

This virtual session provides information on the relationship and implementation of the "PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.x". Three versions of WCAG are covered: 2.0, 2.1, and 2.2. Applying the WCAG PDF Techniques can be tricky and does require a knowledge of tagged PDF. The knowledge of tagged PDF comes in when looking at advisories and AAA conformance. Which ones add to the accessibility and which ones create barriers?

Abstract

This virtual session goes through the PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.x in the order in which they apply logically to working with PDFs. The techniques have been grouped to represent a typical workflow when working with PDFs. Information and insights are provided for each WCAG success criterion that may apply to PDFs. This includes examining advisories to determine if they should be implemented or not and AAA conformance levels that more completely represent and accessible PDF. Often legislation mandates AA conformance. How do PDF remediators justify implementing AAA conformance when it is often left out of legislation and policy? Included in the session are tips on where to find the tools in PDF Editors to implement the success criteria.

Keypoints

  1. Implementing WCAG PDF Techniques.
  2. Understand the WCAG PDF Techniques that advance accessibility or create accessibility barriers.
  3. Understand which WCAG success criterion are for WCAG 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2.

Disability Areas

Topic Areas

Accessible Course Design, Teaching about Accessibility in Curriculum, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

Karen McCall

Karen McCall, M.Ed. is the owner of Karlen Communications. She has been working in the field of accessible document design since 1999. She began her career in website accessibility and auditing and moved to accessible Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents in 2004. Karen is a Canadian delegate to the ISO 14289 or PDF/UA (Universal Access) and the ISO 32000 PDF committee. She has been a Microsoft MVP for Word (Most Valued Professional) since 2009 and a Microsoft Accessibility MVP since 2017 when this category of MVP was established. Karen has written several books on the topic of accessible document design for Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents as well as smaller publications with specific techniques for working with Office applications if you are using adaptive technology and/or the keyboard.