1. Working with Inaccessible PDFs Gaeir Dietrich Director High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges www.htctu.net

2. PDF Defined  Portable document format (PDF)  Reads the same on any computer  Looks like the book  May be text-based (searchable) or graphical (e.g., a scan)

3. Types of PDF Documents  Text-based Text can be selected Searchable  Graphical Picture of text (i.e., a graphic) Text cannot be selected  Use text-select tool to tell the difference

4. How Accessible Is It?  Accessible PDFs will be… Text-based (searchable) Tagged Have logical reading order

5. Where Did It Come From?  If PDF documents are being generated from Word, Open Office, or InDesign, learn first to work with the tools built into those programs  A well-crafted document should have little to no remediation required

6. Tips  When creating a PDF from another program create alt text for all graphics that are not simply “decorative” Mark decorative elements when create the PDF  Before doing additional work within the PDF, make sure the document is final

7. Make a LIST  In originating program…  L: name links logically  I: briefly describe images  S: use styles and logical structure  T: label the header row in tables  The run the “make accessible wizard”

8. How Do You Want to Use It?  Read with screen reader? May be better off extracting text  Read with TTS and follow along in book? May be better off extracting text

9. Keep the Look of the Page?  PC: Use Kurzweil or ClaroRead—no remediation necessary These programs both run OCR on PDFs  Adobe reader: Need to make accessible  Mac: Built-in reader; may need to look at reading order

10. Tools for Processing PDFs  Adobe Acrobat Professional Check on College Buys for discount  Good OCR program Abbyy FineReader Nuance OmniPage  IF you are a Kurzweil campus, you will also need Kurzweil

11. Non-Adobe Alternative  Foxit Lots of good reviews Does OCR Easy to use www.foxitsoftware.com

12. Adobe Tools  Adobe Reader Free Useful for students who need minimal accessibility features http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/  Adobe Acrobat Professional Essential for alt media specialists Extract text, create accessible PDFs, enabled Adobe Reader features www.uscollegebuy.com Discounted Price

13. Acrobat Reader  Reads aloud But does not highlight or track  Enlarges text Nice reflow feature  Changes text/background colors  Text highlighting, sticky notes, and comments  Access for text-based PDFs

14. Production Features in Reader  Really designed for reading, not reformatting  Export PDF Subscription service (about $20/year) New DC version has many subscription levels Upload PDF file, service auto-converts to Word, download

15. Enhancing Accessibility  Accessibility wizard  Add alt text  Touch-up reading order  Mark header rows (table editor)  Check out WebAIM www.webaim.org

16. When to Remediate  Want file format to be PDF  File available to a broad audience

17. When Not to Remediate  Will be running OCR on the PDF  Reading in Kurzweil or ClaroRead  Screen reader user prefers a Word or TXT-type document  Using PDF to print

18. Remediation of Searchable PDFs  Small chunks of text Does not allow for easy reading of line / paragraph Works fine with “read all” command  Often solved just by running accessibility wizard

19. More Remediation of Searchable PDFs  Incorrect reading order Improper reading order creates great chaos  Start with accessibility wizard and tagging, may also need to touch up reading order (TURO)

20. Fixing Tables  Tables not properly formatted  Use table editor to mark header rows / header columns and ensure cells are properly distinguished

21. Remediation of Graphical PDFs  No text available  PDF is only a picture of text  Only remediation is to run OCR

22. Manipulating the PDF  Cropping  Enlargement for printing  Tiling  Extracting/deleting pages  Combining/inserting pages  Text extraction Works best with text-based PDF Does have built-in OCR capability

23. Customize Quick Tools  Click on the “gear”  View > Show/hide > Toolbar Items > Quick Tools

24. Quick Tools Menu

25. Customize

26. Please Note  To enable single-key shortcuts Open Preferences dialog box Ctrl + K Under General > select Use Single-Key Accelerators To Access Tools (first checkbox under Basic Tools)

27. Cropping  Tools > Pages > Crop  Shortcut: C  (Please note: This shortcut brings up the mouse-driven cropping tool—must double click to open the dialog box!)

28. Crop Tool

29. Crop Toolbox

30. Enlarging  Choose paper size/printer  File > Print > Size…to Fit  Shortcut: Ctrl + P (tab through)  Tip: Crop document before enlarging

31. Print to Fit

32. Tiling  Choose paper size/printer  File > Print > Poster > Tile Scale and Overlap  Shortcut: Ctrl + P (tab through)  Tip: Crop document before tiling

33. Enlarge with Tiling

34. Extracting Pages  Tools > Pages > Extract  Delete Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + D  Extract Pages Shortcut: Alt V + T + P (opens Pages pane; F6 focuses in pane and can arrow down)

35. Extraction Tool

36. Tips for Extracting Chapters  Crop on complete file before extracting  Work on a copy!!!!!  Extract from end toward front!  Use table of contents to help  Place focus on first page of chapter to extract (beginning with last)

37. Starting from the Back

38. Combining  File > Pages > Insert  OR  Create > Combine files

39. Inserting Pages

40. Combining Pages

41. Auto Extracting Text  File > Save As > MS Word Retains styles and paragraphs  File > Save As > More options… Text (Accessible)  Lose styles, places hard returns at end of line Text (Plain)  Lose styles, keeps paragraphs  Shortcut: Alt F + A

42. Save As Options

43. Better Text Extraction  OCR programs analyze text and structure Acrobat Pro has built-in OCR, but other programs provide more control  Can control which text to include

44. More Control over Text  For graphical PDFs  Or  To maintain more control over extracting text from text-based PDFs  Use an OCR program!

45. Processing Graphical PDFs  Must run optical character recognition (OCR) Computers cannot read pictures OCR programs recognize the “characters” in the picture  How you process the file depends on the end format the student wants!

46. Want to Stay in PDF?  Sometimes students do want a text- based PDF  Can OCR in Adobe Pro Tools> Recognize Text

47. Under Tools

48. Want Text Out  OmniPage or FineReader FineReader generally easier to learn Save to Word or HTML or Text based on student preference  Use virtual printer with Kurzweil Create KESI files  R&W, ClaroRead Save as Word

49. Which One When?  Want a Word file? Best choice is OmniPage or FineReader  Want a Kurzweil document? Use Kurzweil to process the PDF  For students to do themselves? Whichever program they prefer

50. Why?  OCR programs are designed to make extraction and editing easy  Document readers (R&W, Kurzweil, etc.) are designed to make reading easy…NOT editing.

51. NEVER!!!  Do NOT run OCR with FineReader or OmniPage…save to PDF…and then take into Kurzweil, R&W, etc.  Kurzweil, R&W, WYNN will run their own OCR on the PDF! Wastes time, adds error to do OCR twice

52. OCR Programs  Treat PDFs the same as a TIFF If you OCR scanned documents, use the same process  Load image file  Select zones  Create templates as needed

53. OCR Process Details  Crop before loading into OCR engine  Turn on multiple languages as needed If doing math, turn on Greek Only turn on the languages you need  Edit in the OCR program Some OCR programs have font matching features  Save to Word

54. Captions and Such  For students who want audio or who are using screen readers Separate the main body of the text and the “ancillary text” (captions, sidebars, footnotes) Create two documents 00 Chapter and 00A Chapter  Allows the student to hear main text uninterrupted

55. Two Doc Workflow  Open PDF in OCR Program  Analyze layout for entire document Save a copy  On one copy…delete all ancillary text Save to Word as 00 Chapter  On other copy…delete all main body text Save as 00A Chapter  Keep page numbers in both documents!

56. Once in Word  Learn to use “show hidden” Ctrl + Shift + 8  Beware of the optional hyphen Search and replace to delete Search for ^- replace with nothing Run spell check  Use styles to structure files for braille program

57. Converting Files

58. Magic Conversion Tool  Calibre Converts to and from many formats Fairly intuitive Free!  http://calibre-ebook.com/

59. Another Conversion Tool  TechAdapt http://www.techadapt.com/  TechAdapt Accessible Media Center (TAMC) For converting NIMAS and DAISY  DAISY to… RTF HTML

60. File Transfer  Can use DropBox or Box to transfer files for most readers  Kindle and iPad can often use e-mail

61. Resource Info  Gaeir Dietrich  gdietrich@htctu.net  408-996-6047  www.htctu.net  Alt media listserv  Manuals online