Creating Accessible PDFs July 2016 Creating Accessible PDFs Gaeir Dietrich Director High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges www.htctu.net www.htctu.net

Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 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) www.htctu.net

Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 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 www.htctu.net

Image-based vs. Text-based Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 Image-based vs. Text-based Scanned PDFs are pictures of text Computers cannot read a picture Documents are not e-text unless the computer can see the letters as text Text can be highlighted with the mouse Text can be selected a letter / word at a time Text can be searched www.htctu.net 4 www.htctu.net * Access to IT www.htctu.net 4

PDFs Need to be Text-based Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 PDFs Need to be Text-based Searchable PDFs are text-based Not scans or “pictures” of text If you scan, you need to run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to obtain text If you start from a Word document, you will have text Now you just need to ensure the PDF will be accessible www.htctu.net 5 www.htctu.net * Access to IT www.htctu.net 5

Tagged PDF Simple with Adobe Pro Adds reading order and structure Enhances readability But don’t be surprised if JAWS users still want a Word document Possible to remediate, but easier if included from the start 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Tools for Processing PDFs Adobe Acrobat Professional Word to PDF Check on College Buys for discount Good OCR program To process scanned documents Abbyy FineReader Nuance OmniPage

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

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

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!

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

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0

In a Nutshell: Four Guidelines Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust So POUR yourself into your work. ;-) 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Perceivable Make sure pictures (graphics) have text descriptions Alt text or alt tag Use structure Allows for ease of reformatting Use good contrast Make sure that text can be distinguished easily from the background 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Operable Make sure everything works from the keyboard Make sure the tab order is logical Do not require a mouse Make content easy to find and navigate Use logical headings Make sure header rows in tables are clearly marked 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Understandable Write clearly Define terms Spell out acronyms Always write out the first time used 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Robust Use good design to ensure that the document will work with all assistive technology Not just JAWS Provide multiple formats PDF and RTF 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Adobe Acrobat Pro is your friend! MS Word to PDF Adobe Acrobat Pro is your friend!

Starting from Word Did you make your Colored LIST? √ Links √ Images √ Styles √ Tables

Before You Convert Name links properly Briefly describe images Use styles to format the document Mark the header row in tables Watch your color contrast… And THEN convert!

Create PDF and Run Action Install Adobe Acrobat Pro From the Word ribbon choose Create PDF and Run Action 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Create Accessible PDF 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

In Acrobat Pro Run the “Make Accessible” Wizard Green “Start” button

When in doubt… Run the wizard! Action > Make Accessible It automatically fixes a host of accessibility problems!

Checking in Acrobat Tags Tags are really important for access! View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags Tags are really important for access! 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

No Tags? Tools > Accessibility > Add tags And tags can be changed by right-clicking on them 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Reading Order: TURO Occasionally a document will not read in the proper order Accessibility > Touch Up Reading Order The order panel is also an option 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Table Inspector If a table has a column header, you will add it with the Table Inspector. From Touch Up Reading Order, select table then Inspector 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Accessible Documents For maximum accessibility include both the PDF and the Word document online PDF and RTF If concerned about security with Word, can apply permissions 10/19/2017 www.htctu.net

Processing PDFs

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

Remediation of Text-Based PDF First step…Run the wizard!

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

Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 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 www.htctu.net

Quick Tools Menu

Customize

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!)

Crop Tool

Crop Toolbox

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

Print to Fit

Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 Tiling Choose paper size/printer File > Print > Poster > Tile Scale and Overlap Shortcut: Ctrl + P (tab through) Tip: Crop document before tiling www.htctu.net

Enlarge with Tiling

Combining File > Pages > Insert OR Create > Combine files

Inserting Pages

Combining Pages

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)

Extraction Tool

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)

Starting from the Back

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

Save As Options

Better Text Extraction Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 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 www.htctu.net 53

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

Processing Graphical PDFs Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 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! www.htctu.net

OCR Process Details Crop before loading into OCR engine Turn on multiple languages as needed If doing math, possibly 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

Creating Accessible PDF July 2016 Converting Files www.htctu.net Alt Media for Ebooks * www.htctu.net 57 57

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

Resource Info Gaeir Dietrich gdietrich@htctu.net 408-996-6047 www.htctu.net