Thank you very much for this detailled article. However, I want to remind you, that Safari only uses Preview’s functionality to display PDFs, i.e. it can’t be mentioned as it own PDF-reader.
Jakob says: “When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they’re interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn’t be given a browser UI.”
In response to the other users who had problems printing this great article, I had too had the same issue but resolved it by opening the page in Opera 8 and printing from there.
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Joe Clark
No, I don’t know of any usability studies of PDFs, with or without disabled test subjects. We could certainly use those.
The AFB advice is outdated by several years, but will no doubt be given credence indefinitely despite new facts. Perhaps the AFB should use a strength of the Web (immediacy) and update its document.
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Dominic Jones
So are you saying you wrote a long article about PDFs being accessible, yet you don’t know if disabled users can actually use PDFs that are designed to be accessible?
Or are you saying you have no evidence that accessible PDFs are usable?
So are you saying you wrote a long article about PDFs being accessible, yet you don’t know if disabled users can actually use PDFs that are designed to be accessible? Or are you saying you have no evidence that accessible PDFs are usable?
The author is not making either of those statments. It’s quite clear what the author is saying: he knows of no usability studies of PDFs; good ones would be welcome.
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Helen Sargan
Although many different applications allow simple creation of pdfs, sadly the internet is full of pdfs with no proper title and metadata. Although google makes up for this itself, if people add their own title and metadata they have a better say in how search results for their files appear (more so if they are using some other search engine, for instance for local use). Very few applications will allow you a route to view and change the title and decription and keywords, and in some cases the conversion process will take historical data from the file and use that.
So yes, do look at your pdf as the result of a search, preferably with your local search engine (if you have one) as well as seeing what google says about it. You may well have to buy the full version Acrobat to edit the metadata (and you can use it to add XMP as well).
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Dominic Jones
C’mon. What is this?
The article says PDFs are accessible. That means people with screen readers can use them.
But you cannot cite a single piece of evidence from actual disabled users that they can use PDFs that are designed to be accessible.
That was the point of the AFB white paper. Even though you can make a PDF technically accessible, in practice blind people still can’t use them, for a bunch of reasons.
So, in the absence of any evidence that proves otherwise, everthing in this article is moot.
Yes, you can make PDFs accessible, but why bother if the people you are doing this for can’t use them anyway?
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Joe Clark
PDF accessibility is just like Web accessibility: We’ve got a set of technologies and guidelines we use. By doing so, we have confidence that people with disabilities can understand and use our content. There have been very few (really indeed very few) usability studies of compliant Web sites, and none thath I know of pertaining to tagged PDF, for example. This doesn’t change the fact that PDF has accessibility features, or the related fact that many of the complaints about PDF that are advanced as reasons they’re inaccessible (e.g., “my device can’t read tagged PDF”), are off-topic. Rather like your complaints, Dominic.
Link us to your curriculum vitae and I’m sure Adobe or others would consider hiring you to do such a study.
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h 3
By nature, I likes PDF.. this is a greate way to ensure that data will show exacly the same accross medias. What I hate is the browser support, they freeze a lot of browsers. I d’ont know if it’s just me but It gets me crazy when I loose my 20 opened tabs in firefox just because I didn’t notice that the link am clicking on was a PDF, wich I usually “save as” to read later in a decent PDF reader. I don’t know if it’s caused by malformed PDF tags or a bad browser implentation but IMO it happens way to often.
I received a PDF recently and thought I’d check it for accessibility. I saw that ‘Add Tags To Document’ wasn’t greyed out in the Accessibility menu. But when I tried the menu option, the following error came up. Anyone got any ideas about this?
“Acrobat [7.0 Standard] was unable to make this document accessible because of the following error:
Bad PDF; could not read page structure. (Bad PDF; error in processing fonts: bad font)1
Please note that some pages of this document may have been changed. Because of this failure, you are advised to not save these changes.“
So I checked the Properties screen but couldn’t see any problems. There was a single font used – Courier. I also noted the company logo and a box of text on the page used Times New Roman. Trying to select the text revealed it was part of an image! No way to select, copy or read out the text there!
In my job we process PDF job application forms for a leading website and we have to include db related fields into the PDF. Strangely its cheaper than HTML however the results are messy, file size is erratic and navigation is cumbersome.
Finally, on the fourth try, I’ve figured out printer settings so I can print this fine article without losing the right-hand end of each line. Could you help? I’m going to be recommending it to a couple hundred EPA colleagues, and we like to save paper. :^) Thanks!
I agree with Joe’s statement that “Some documents really should be PDFs.” Specifically, some RECORDS (locked-down documents with long-term value) should be PDF because PDF is an ideal preservation format, mainly because it is flatter than other formats. Preservation of HTML files is made easier with PDF, because HTML files, with their multi-media multi-layered nature, make it difficult to determine the boundaries of the record and use standardized metadata for the different layers and media. The problem of preserving context and record relationships doesn’t go away with PDF, though.
I went to a media briefing on accessible PDFs hosted by the RNIB on Thursday 20th October 2005. One of the impressive demonstrations was the RNIB 2005 Financial Report, all done as an accessible PDF, including tables – which are regarded as being difficult to make accessible.
Hugh Huddy – from the RNIB – did the demonstration of navigation a Balance sheet in a PDF document using Adobe Acrobat and Jaws. He navigated the balance sheet, as far as I could tell, in exactly the same manner you would if it were done in HTML. He switched into a tables reading mode, and had access to all the information in the table along with the relevant headers for the cells. Also demonstrated was navigating using links and header structure.
Its not an ivory tower usability study, but a practical, and live, demonstration proving we are able to create accessible PDFs. I guess it proved PDFs – even complex ones – can be created to be accessible, and they can be accessible to screen readers.
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Lee McIvor
I’d just like to point out, with regards to Mike Davies comment above, that what he says is true about the outcome of the RNIBs briefing.
What he doesn’t mention is that, after much struggling, the RNIB team of experienced developers had to bring in external consultants to enable them to properly tag their PDF files, as they just couldn’t do it..!!
Does this really mean that PDFs are accessible? Surely that’s like saying a house without a roof will keep me dry in the rain, I just have to learn how to build a roof??
On a more positive note, i’d love to see some independent user testing to see just how accessible properly tagged PDFs are, and also how the process of tagging can be made easier.
My main issue with Joe’s article is that it’s now being touted around the UK public sector as validation for providing 90% of their web content in (un-tagged) PDFs, though no doubt Joe will be horrified to hear it.
What he doesn’t mention is that, after much struggling, the RNIB team of experienced developers had to bring in external consultants to enable them to properly tag their PDF files, as they just couldn’t do it..!!
As I understood the comment, it wasn’t experienced developers that were having the problems, but their regular PDF publishers. Hugh opined that part of the problem was that either they were too afraid they would get it wrong, or too afraid to even try. Yes, the RNIB brought in some technical help.
As I understood this, this is no difference to bringing in an accessibility consultant to help in-house web developers make their websites accessible. That does indeed happen.
I’ve posted my notes on the event over at:
http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/RnibAccessiblePdfMediaBriefing
As with all my live blogging attempts – mistakes are all mine.
I have a current complaint lodged with the HREOC and asked if the HREOC has a role in prosecuting, and the response given was:
“HREOC is no longer a hearing commission, so we do not make determinations as to whether someone has been discriminated against or what the remedy should be. However, through our investigation and conciliation processes, HREOC may form a view as to whether or not there is an arguable case that discrimination may have occurred and we will express such a view to the parties, when appropriate.”
So the HREOC will no longer crack down on anyone. (Which is sad when there’s a genuine grievance and the only option is to pay lawyers. No wonder I am in this situation: businesses know the little people can’t fight back.)
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Mendy Shmayonky
I don’t know if this topic is related. I honestly could not look through all the threads. ButI was looking for some advice on how to create a zoom tool on a website, like alot clothing website have. To zoom in on the item. If anyone could help that would be greatly appreciated.
I have some web sites that we use PDF to grant more information about some subject when visitors ask.
In this case I think it will be necessary and very useful.
Thanks for your article and knowledge that you grant to me by reading it
52 Reader Comments
Back to the ArticlePhilipp Gérard
Thank you very much for this detailled article. However, I want to remind you, that Safari only uses Preview’s functionality to display PDFs, i.e. it can’t be mentioned as it own PDF-reader.
Best wishes,
Philipp
Dominic Jones
Joe,
Can you point to a single public study involving disabled users where they find PDF documents to be usable, even if those PDFs are tagged?
According to this American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) white paper, PDF accessibility is just theoretical
http://www.afb.org/section.asp?SectionID=3&TopicID=135&DocumentID=1706
Pie in the sky?
Christopher Fahey
Alertbox 8/29/2005:
Jakob says: “When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they’re interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn’t be given a browser UI.”
—> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html
Must be something in the water this week.
Darren Taylor
In response to the other users who had problems printing this great article, I had too had the same issue but resolved it by opening the page in Opera 8 and printing from there.
Joe Clark
No, I don’t know of any usability studies of PDFs, with or without disabled test subjects. We could certainly use those.
The AFB advice is outdated by several years, but will no doubt be given credence indefinitely despite new facts. Perhaps the AFB should use a strength of the Web (immediacy) and update its document.
Dominic Jones
So are you saying you wrote a long article about PDFs being accessible, yet you don’t know if disabled users can actually use PDFs that are designed to be accessible?
Or are you saying you have no evidence that accessible PDFs are usable?
What are you saying?
Jeffrey Zeldman
The author is not making either of those statments. It’s quite clear what the author is saying: he knows of no usability studies of PDFs; good ones would be welcome.
Helen Sargan
Although many different applications allow simple creation of pdfs, sadly the internet is full of pdfs with no proper title and metadata. Although google makes up for this itself, if people add their own title and metadata they have a better say in how search results for their files appear (more so if they are using some other search engine, for instance for local use). Very few applications will allow you a route to view and change the title and decription and keywords, and in some cases the conversion process will take historical data from the file and use that.
So yes, do look at your pdf as the result of a search, preferably with your local search engine (if you have one) as well as seeing what google says about it. You may well have to buy the full version Acrobat to edit the metadata (and you can use it to add XMP as well).
Dominic Jones
C’mon. What is this?
The article says PDFs are accessible. That means people with screen readers can use them.
But you cannot cite a single piece of evidence from actual disabled users that they can use PDFs that are designed to be accessible.
That was the point of the AFB white paper. Even though you can make a PDF technically accessible, in practice blind people still can’t use them, for a bunch of reasons.
So, in the absence of any evidence that proves otherwise, everthing in this article is moot.
Yes, you can make PDFs accessible, but why bother if the people you are doing this for can’t use them anyway?
Get out of your ivory towers.
Joe Clark
PDF accessibility is just like Web accessibility: We’ve got a set of technologies and guidelines we use. By doing so, we have confidence that people with disabilities can understand and use our content. There have been very few (really indeed very few) usability studies of compliant Web sites, and none thath I know of pertaining to tagged PDF, for example. This doesn’t change the fact that PDF has accessibility features, or the related fact that many of the complaints about PDF that are advanced as reasons they’re inaccessible (e.g., “my device can’t read tagged PDF”), are off-topic. Rather like your complaints, Dominic.
Link us to your curriculum vitae and I’m sure Adobe or others would consider hiring you to do such a study.
h 3
By nature, I likes PDF.. this is a greate way to ensure that data will show exacly the same accross medias. What I hate is the browser support, they freeze a lot of browsers. I d’ont know if it’s just me but It gets me crazy when I loose my 20 opened tabs in firefox just because I didn’t notice that the link am clicking on was a PDF, wich I usually “save as” to read later in a decent PDF reader. I don’t know if it’s caused by malformed PDF tags or a bad browser implentation but IMO it happens way to often.
Chris Hester
I received a PDF recently and thought I’d check it for accessibility. I saw that ‘Add Tags To Document’ wasn’t greyed out in the Accessibility menu. But when I tried the menu option, the following error came up. Anyone got any ideas about this?
“Acrobat [7.0 Standard] was unable to make this document accessible because of the following error:
Bad PDF; could not read page structure. (Bad PDF; error in processing fonts: bad font)1
Please note that some pages of this document may have been changed. Because of this failure, you are advised to not save these changes.“
So I checked the Properties screen but couldn’t see any problems. There was a single font used – Courier. I also noted the company logo and a box of text on the page used Times New Roman. Trying to select the text revealed it was part of an image! No way to select, copy or read out the text there!
Johan De Silva
In my job we process PDF job application forms for a leading website and we have to include db related fields into the PDF. Strangely its cheaper than HTML however the results are messy, file size is erratic and navigation is cumbersome.
Karen Reshkin
Finally, on the fourth try, I’ve figured out printer settings so I can print this fine article without losing the right-hand end of each line. Could you help? I’m going to be recommending it to a couple hundred EPA colleagues, and we like to save paper. :^) Thanks!
Maureen Cusack
I agree with Joe’s statement that “Some documents really should be PDFs.” Specifically, some RECORDS (locked-down documents with long-term value) should be PDF because PDF is an ideal preservation format, mainly because it is flatter than other formats. Preservation of HTML files is made easier with PDF, because HTML files, with their multi-media multi-layered nature, make it difficult to determine the boundaries of the record and use standardized metadata for the different layers and media. The problem of preserving context and record relationships doesn’t go away with PDF, though.
Mike Davies
I went to a media briefing on accessible PDFs hosted by the RNIB on Thursday 20th October 2005. One of the impressive demonstrations was the RNIB 2005 Financial Report, all done as an accessible PDF, including tables – which are regarded as being difficult to make accessible.
Hugh Huddy – from the RNIB – did the demonstration of navigation a Balance sheet in a PDF document using Adobe Acrobat and Jaws. He navigated the balance sheet, as far as I could tell, in exactly the same manner you would if it were done in HTML. He switched into a tables reading mode, and had access to all the information in the table along with the relevant headers for the cells. Also demonstrated was navigating using links and header structure.
Its not an ivory tower usability study, but a practical, and live, demonstration proving we are able to create accessible PDFs. I guess it proved PDFs – even complex ones – can be created to be accessible, and they can be accessible to screen readers.
Lee McIvor
I’d just like to point out, with regards to Mike Davies comment above, that what he says is true about the outcome of the RNIBs briefing.
What he doesn’t mention is that, after much struggling, the RNIB team of experienced developers had to bring in external consultants to enable them to properly tag their PDF files, as they just couldn’t do it..!!
Does this really mean that PDFs are accessible? Surely that’s like saying a house without a roof will keep me dry in the rain, I just have to learn how to build a roof??
On a more positive note, i’d love to see some independent user testing to see just how accessible properly tagged PDFs are, and also how the process of tagging can be made easier.
My main issue with Joe’s article is that it’s now being touted around the UK public sector as validation for providing 90% of their web content in (un-tagged) PDFs, though no doubt Joe will be horrified to hear it.
Mike Davies
As I understood the comment, it wasn’t experienced developers that were having the problems, but their regular PDF publishers. Hugh opined that part of the problem was that either they were too afraid they would get it wrong, or too afraid to even try. Yes, the RNIB brought in some technical help.
As I understood this, this is no difference to bringing in an accessibility consultant to help in-house web developers make their websites accessible. That does indeed happen.
I’ve posted my notes on the event over at:
http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/RnibAccessiblePdfMediaBriefing
As with all my live blogging attempts – mistakes are all mine.
Vicki B
Coming in late here… just a clarification:
I have a current complaint lodged with the HREOC and asked if the HREOC has a role in prosecuting, and the response given was:
“HREOC is no longer a hearing commission, so we do not make determinations as to whether someone has been discriminated against or what the remedy should be. However, through our investigation and conciliation processes, HREOC may form a view as to whether or not there is an arguable case that discrimination may have occurred and we will express such a view to the parties, when appropriate.”
So the HREOC will no longer crack down on anyone. (Which is sad when there’s a genuine grievance and the only option is to pay lawyers. No wonder I am in this situation: businesses know the little people can’t fight back.)
Mendy Shmayonky
I don’t know if this topic is related. I honestly could not look through all the threads. ButI was looking for some advice on how to create a zoom tool on a website, like alot clothing website have. To zoom in on the item. If anyone could help that would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Mendy
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Guilherme Almeida
I have some web sites that we use PDF to grant more information about some subject when visitors ask.
In this case I think it will be necessary and very useful.
Thanks for your article and knowledge that you grant to me by reading it