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Accessible PDF Tagging
The Portable Document Format (PDF) is the file format created by Adobe Systems, in 1993, for document exchange.
PDF files that are accessible to disabled people can be created. Current PDF file formats can include tags (XML), text equivalents, captions, audio descriptions, et cetera). Some software, such as Adobe InDesign and Quark, can automatically produce tagged PDFs. Leading screen readers, including JAWS, Window-Eyes, and Hal, can read tagged PDFs; current versions of the Acrobat and Acrobat Reader programs can also read PDFs aloud. Moreover, tagged PDFs can be re-flowed and magnified for readers with poor eysesight, however, problems remain: the difficulty in adding tags to existing, or legacy, PDFs, e.g. for PDFs are generated from scanned documents, accessibility tags and re-flowing are unavailable, and must be created manually.
PDF files are very common the web, and are often things like an Annual report, or a brochure of services designed by a grahpic designer.
It is important to remember that the PDFs that you place on your website need to have the same level of thought and attention paid to them as far as accessibility is concerned.
We have found that companies simpy do not have the time to learn the Adobe Acrobat product and be able to tag a document effectively, so we have offer a manual tagging service to help with the process.
Further reading on creating Accessible PDFs can be found on the Adobe website http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/index.html
If you would like to take advantage of this service then drop us an email below, or send us your PDF and contact detail and we can discuss the project
+44(0)20 7168 7526 or info@spotlessdesign.com