ChanceyFleet
A colleague has asked me for examples of PDF accessibility done right, and I'm drawing a blank.
Links to any publicly available PDF with good semantic structure, tagging, and accessibility to elements like tables and images would be very helpful
although of course you may also use this thread to dunk on the format, if you wish
Nov 14, 2024 at 4:39pmWeb
Show threadDan PhifferNov 14, 2024
@ChanceyFleet here’s an academic paper composed entirely of the word “chicken,” not my creation but I am curious how accessible it is:
https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf
Show threadChanceyFleetNov 15, 2024
@dphiffer Ah yes, Poultry Document Format
Show threadChanceyFleetNov 15, 2024
@dphiffer The body is fine but this is unfortunately a headingless chicken.
Show threadSarah RussellNov 14, 2024
@ChanceyFleet The Quest RPG PDF book is free, has a screen reader friendly PDF that is tagged beautifully images tables and all that good stuff. I can link you to the place to snag it if interested. Trying to think of others that are easier to link to.
Show threadChanceyFleetNov 15, 2024
@blindbat84 I would love that!!
Show threadSarah RussellNov 15, 2024
@ChanceyFleet Here you go, just have to add to cart from here, but totally free. https://www.adventure.game/store/digital-edition/
Digital Game Book

Quest is a thrilling adventure with your friends that you won't forget. Get the game and join the fun.

Show threadPaws 2 SpindleNov 14, 2024

@ChanceyFleet I don't have any example files, but I did hear recently that Adobe Acrobat has an accessibility checker that is good.* So if you do get examples, you can run them against Acrobat and see what Adobe thinks.

* My license has expired and I'm in no hurry to renew, so I haven't tried it out on any of my own PDFs.

Show threadSeirdyNov 14, 2024
@ChanceyFleet For anybody who wants to inspect the structure of a PDF’s tags before recommending it as an example, I cannot recommend pdfplumber enough. It’s a library and CLI utility to inspect, scrape, and debug PDFs. It works well for showing the (lack of) structure of tagged PDFs, and is less finicky than pdfinfo.
GitHub - jsvine/pdfplumber: Plumb a PDF for detailed information about each char, rectangle, line, et cetera — and easily extract text and tables.

Plumb a PDF for detailed information about each char, rectangle, line, et cetera — and easily extract text and tables. - jsvine/pdfplumber

GitHub
Show threadEryn with a YNov 15, 2024

@ChanceyFleet I wish we could all agree that PDFs are terrible and will never actually be accessible.

Sorry, had to rant.

Show threadPhilip KiffNov 15, 2024

@ChanceyFleet The @PDFassociation offers some accessible PDFs.

Their Matterhorn Protocol provides a testing model for PDFs, and the protocol doc itself conforms to PDF/UA-1. [1]

Their Tagged PDF Best Practices Guide also follows best practices. [2]

But it's definitely hard to find good examples of accessible PDFs in the wild! Which says a lot about the problems with PDF format.

Links to 1 MB PDFs:

[1] https://pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Matterhorn-Protocol-1-1.pdf

[2] https://pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Tagged-PDF-Best-Practice-Guide.pdf

#PDF #PDFUA #Accessibility

Show threadPDF AssociationNov 15, 2024

@pkiff @ChanceyFleet Aww, they aren't THAT hard to find!

Speaking of "in the wild", our latest "PDF in the Wild" feature mentions several organizations proudly posting PDF/UA files!

https://pdfa.org/nara-updates-its-guidance-on-ocr-and-pdf-collections/

NARA updates its guidance on OCR and PDF collections – PDF Association