Just sharing this article of mine which was just posted today govloop.com/community/blog/pdf…
#PDFs are a real problem for #accessibility. They are also a real challenge for any government working to provide a modern, digital experience for their citizens.
We have to build to alternatives to PDFs.
PDFs Don’t Fit Into Gov Strategies for a Modern Digital Experience - GovLoop
Agencies still widely use PDFs, but they create accessibility issues for low-vision users and, among others, people on mobile devices.GovLoop
Clayton Dewey
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Clayton Dewey • • •Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Clayton Dewey • • •Mark Conroy
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •We've been building LocalGov Publications module for LocalGov Drupal to help councils stop publishing pdfs on their websites.
github.com/localgovdrupal/loca…
GitHub - localgovdrupal/localgov_publications
GitHubMike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Mark Conroy • • •Boris VAN HOYTEMA
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •HTML is the format in my eyes. It can be opened nearly everywhere without having to install anything. It can be styled and printed without losing its semantic and machine readable properties.
I know of 1 exception: Microsoft's browser based collaboration suites. Those just show you the source and won't let you view them or open them in a new window.
#PDFs #accessibility
Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM reshared this.
Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Boris VAN HOYTEMA • • •Allusion
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •While I agree that PDFs are bad (and Acrobat in particular is garbage for marking up accessibility), I don't know how much difference switching formats would make.
I mean if a government employee is writing a document in Word and just massaging the text formatting until it looks right, it doesn't really matter if there's an export to PDF or an export to EPUB 3 or HTML 5 or DAISY button. You have to build the structural semantics into the document from the ground up for it to be usable, independent of format.
Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Allusion • • •Allusion
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •Fair enough, but as long as the authoring tool is Word (or any WYSIWYG desktop publishing software) you're going to end up with soup.
I suppose if you review the output file, it's easier to notice a messed-up structure and possibly fix it with epub/HTML than PDF, but that requires the time and effort to do so.
Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Allusion • • •Mike McCaffrey
in reply to Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM • • •Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM
in reply to Mike McCaffrey • • •