1. PDF Accessibility Lisa Tomalty, IST ltomalty@uwaterloo.ca, x35873 ltomalty@uwaterloo.ca

2. Agenda Legislation Culture Change When PDFs are not accessible (scanned files) Ensuring New PDFs Are Accessible Testing Accessibility Word/PDF Accessibility Making Existing PDFs Accessible Questions?

3. Legislation Web sites, including PDF files on our web sites published as of January 1, 2012: –Will need to be accessible as per the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act (AODA) by January 1, 2014 (WCAG 2.0 Level A). PDFs on our web sites must either: –Be accessible or –Have accessible HTML equivalents Why? –We want to reduce/eliminate barriers faced by people with disabilities –Include whole audience (recruiting/retaining staff, students and faculty) –57+% computer users are likely to benefit from accessible technology (Forrester Research, 2004) –Legal reasons

4. Culture Change How we create documents –Create a culture of thinking “accessibility” at the time of creation(web,Word,PDF,etc.) Word templates will be made available but –people still need to be aware of how to make documents accessible and how to test for accessibility Accessibility testing – part of creation just like naming and saving a file

5. When PDFs are not accessible (scanned files) PDFs that are scanned files, saved as PDF, are not accessible PDFs that have been created from an accessible Word file, are generally accessible (but may require tweaks to be fully accessible) Having an HTML version is the best alternative in some cases

6. Ensuring New PDFs Are Accessible Educate campus Have resource staff to advise and help Training In house (SEW course, web pages) UW/IST may bring in a trainer for ½ day – 1 day training course Provide templates (training is still required)

7. Testing Accessibility Word and Acrobat accessibility testing Free Testing Tool for individuals: –PAC: http://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf- lab/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac.htmlhttp://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf- lab/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac.html Recommended by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 14/23 WCAG 2.0 checks Gives text of what a blind person would hear

8. Word/PDF Accessibility A SEW course has been taught on Word/PDF Accessibility The course notes are at: https://sharepoint.uwaterloo.ca/sites/IST/CS/ under SEW Handouts/Web Courses/ Accessible Word and PDF Files https://sharepoint.uwaterloo.ca/sites/IST/CS/

9. Making Existing PDFs Accessible Find PDF files on our sites (using internal or external resources) If not needed anymore, remove from site Create HTML alternative, OR Make the PDF files accessible: –Using an external resource for a cost OR –Edit the source (e.g. Word) to make it accessible, convert to PDF, test PDF for accessibility OR –Tag existing PDF, test for accessibility (a lot of work)

10. Making Existing PDFs Accessible External Resources: –There are organizations that will scan our sites and make our PDF files accessible for a cost http://www.accessibilit.com/public/services/ www.tbase.com CommonLook (Word, PPT (soon), PDF) Many others to investigate

11. Making Existing PDFs Accessible An accessibility working group has been formed –“The goal of this working group is to identify and address gaps in information, training and support required for uWaterloo staff pertaining to the web accessibility legislation.”

12. Suggestions Spread the word about accessibility to the campus community Encourage training –Writing for the Web, Web Accessibility, PDF Accessibility Ensure enough resources (staff/outside resources) to meet January 2014 deadline Plan for testing web sites for accessibility including PDF files

13. Suggestions Make templates available Plan for –removing old PDFs –Making existing PDFs accessible or adding HTML equivalents

14. Questions? Thank you !