1. Enabling Staff to Produce Accessible Content Excellence through Accessibility Workshop 27th February 2007

2. www.xmlw.ie2 XML Workshop Ltd. Technical Director: Eoin Campbell We provide the NDA with Word to accessible HTML conversion service Also offer accessibility auditing services And YAWC Word to HTML subscription service

3. www.xmlw.ie3 Outline Alternative title of talk: –How to upskill your colleagues to provide you with quality content for electronic publication –(through the medium of Microsoft Word)

4. www.xmlw.ie4 Rationale Most written content starts life inside a wordprocessing document… –Press Releases, Annual Reports, FoI Manuals, Customer Service Action Plans, etc. …so improving the quality of the (upstream) authoring process should hopefully simplify its' (downstream) publication in various formats

5. www.xmlw.ie5 What is Quality... In relation to narrative text content? A number of facets: –Is it written well? –Is it presented well? –Is it structured well? For electronic publications, structure is important –This is a new and non-intuitive concept!

6. www.xmlw.ie6 What is Structured Information? Press Release: title, body text Annual Report: frontmatter, chapters (with sections), appendices FoI Manual: functions, records, publications, procedures

7. www.xmlw.ie7 Web Page Visual Structure Top navigation and branding/logo Side navigation Main page content Footer links

8. www.xmlw.ie8 Web Page Content Structure H1 – main page title –H2 – section heading 1 H3 - subsection heading 1 –H2 – section heading 2 H3 - subsection heading 1 H3 - subsection heading 2 HTML has a generic structure, it doesn't know (or care) what a Press Release is

9. www.xmlw.ie9 Word Document Structure Title style – Document title Heading 1 style - section heading 1 –Heading 2 style – sub-section heading 1 Heading 1 style - section heading 2 –Heading 2 style – sub-section heading 1 –Heading 2 style – sub-section heading 2 Plus list and table structures –List Bullet, List Bullet 2…, –Table heading rows, table cells

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11. www.xmlw.ie11 Word Document Structure is Generic Word doesn’t know what a Press Release, a Chapter, or a Report is –(HTML doesn’t know either) So the same Title style should be used for the main title of any document –Press Release, Report, or Chapter It's easy to map built-in Word styles to corresponding HTML elements

12. www.xmlw.ie12 Word Style to HTML Element Map

13. www.xmlw.ie13 How to get Structured Content From Authors Show authors how they benefit from structure –Because they don't care about anyone else Teach how to create structure –With class-room and Just-in-time learning Make it easy to apply structure –It is surprisingly difficult to do so in the default Word environment

14. www.xmlw.ie14 Benefits of Word Structure for Authors (or, What's In It For Me?) Easy to create and update a Table of Contents Easy to modify appearance (e.g. change font family for Heading style) Easy to move sections around (using View > Outline) Easy to navigate long documents (using View > Document Map)

15. www.xmlw.ie15 Teaching Authors about Structure Typical application training courses teach people about features –Teaching people about structure is in the "Advanced" Word course –So some customised training is needed Staff roles change, so new people always arriving –Need to plan for this with lots of resources Reinforce message using allies in the organisation

16. www.xmlw.ie16 Learning Resources for Authors A short, hands-on, class-room introduction –Scheduled every 3-6 months for new staff –Because staff roles change quite frequently A printed and online guide to formatting Online demonstrations using 'screencasts‘ Formal publishing procedures operating manual Ongoing feedback (constructive) on delivered content

17. www.xmlw.ie17 Screencasts for Training Create interactive 'How-To' demos –e.g. How to insert a hyperlinkHow to insert a hyperlink –Always available for reference (e.g. on an intranet) Lots of good, cheap recording/annotation tools available –Macromedia Captivate, Camtasia, Wink (free)

18. www.xmlw.ie18 Publishing Procedures Manual Important tool to capture essential knowledge/know-how E.g. “How to publish a Press Release” –File name convention YYYYMMDD.htm - Date format that sorts well –Folder location (/press/2007/) –Title Case Format Convention (CamelCase) Or use sentence case – BUT BE CONSISTENT!

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20. www.xmlw.ie20 Help from Allies Other parts of the organisation can help achieve common goals –Training Unit –Disability Services –IT Support –Records Management/Archive Unit –Freedom of Information Officer –PRO/ Communications

21. www.xmlw.ie21 Default Word Editing Environment By default, Word does not support creating structured documents –The formatting toolbar is presentation, not structure, oriented –No menu for applying styles –No keyboard shortcuts for structure styles So authors need a Word template that assists them

22. www.xmlw.ie22 Word Structure Styles Template Should provide multiple ways to apply structure –To suit different authoring styles A menu for choosing structure styles A toolbar for selecting common styles Keyboard shortcuts for common styles

23. www.xmlw.ie23 Word Styles Menu

24. www.xmlw.ie24 Word Style Keyboard Shortcuts

25. www.xmlw.ie25 Publishing Word Structured Word documents are quite accessible in their own right, but –Not device/platform-independent Not even Word version independent! –Slow to download (with embedded images) –Insecure (may spread viruses) –Not suitable for search engine indexing So should not be published online

26. www.xmlw.ie26 Converting Word Word can be converted to accessible PDF, if –Adobe Acrobat Word plug-in is used –Acrobat configuration enables accessibility settings 3rd-party PDF converters do not support accessibility Acrobat does not convert PostScript files into accessible PDF Some PDF resources available online –cf. www.xmlw.ie/aboutaccessibility/resources.htmwww.xmlw.ie/aboutaccessibility/resources.htm

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29. www.xmlw.ie29 Digression: DTP Packages Many publications are typeset using specialised applications, such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher PDFs from these packages are often published online –But they are not accessible –i.e. not navigable, don't resize, and text flow is incorrect Best approach is to save as RTF, and re- format in Word

30. www.xmlw.ie30 Publishing Word Online Relatively easy to convert structured Word into HTML Copy and paste Word into DreamWeaver or good web-based editing interface –e.g. eWebEditPro, XStandard –These automatically strip out excess formatting Use "Save as Web page" command in Word –With Microsoft add-on to strip excess formatting But manual clean-up usually necessary to ensure accessibility

31. www.xmlw.ie31 Converting Word to Accessible HTML Specialist 3rd-party Word to XML/HTML converters –Far superior quality to copy and paste approach –Avoid manual clean-up entirely –Logictran and UpCast are best commercial applications –Quite cheap, but do require customisation –Cf. http://www.xmlw.ie/aboutxml/word2xml.htmhttp://www.xmlw.ie/aboutxml/word2xml.htm List of converters we have tried

32. www.xmlw.ie32 YAWC Online Service Hosted conversion service –Based on Logictran conversion engine –Customised to generate fully accessible HTML –Automatically includes design template to create ready- to-publish HTML Used by us to provide NDA and others with a document conversion service (~ €5 per A4 page) Used by Dept. Enterprise staff to maintain website directly

33. www.xmlw.ie33 Summary Structured information is accessible information Structured information costs less: –to manage, maintain, publish and find With a little help, everyone can create structured information using Word –Its much cheaper to create structured information at the start, than add structure at the end Structured information in Word converts into accessible HTML

34. Questions and Answers Enabling Staff to Produce Accessible Content Eoin Campbell, XML Workshop Ltd. www.xmlw.ie