[Blindmath] Is the PDF format acceptable as an assistive technology

Mon Jan 30 01:56:28 UTC 2012

In addition, there is apparently a project going on that is attempting to define when diagrams should be done as a tactile drawing and when it is adequate 
to have written descriptions.  I believe that persons involved in DAISY are involved in that project as well.  That should help to make more diagrams 
available within DAISY documents.

One of the problems that we are seeing more and more is that companies like Adobe say their products are accessible because they can be used to 
create accessible output.  There is very little that actually forces it to happen.  Adobe has a lot that one can read about accessibility, but unless things 
have changed, there is really very little that pushes someone creating a PDF to make it accessible.  Add to that the fact that there are a number of PDF 
creators that are not owned by Adobe.  In my mind, it is not unlike the situation we have with Java.  I've talked to programmers who, having been told that 
Java is accessible, believed that their programs would be accessible more or less automatically.  There are other examples as well, and I think that those 
of us in consumer groups such as the NFB are going to need to try to deal with this.  

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:33:02 -0600, John J. Boyer wrote:

>I would strongly recommend the "ZedAI" format developed by the DAISY 
>consortium. It is a zipped archive containing formatting files, an xml 
>file with the text and links to images, theimages themselves, and audio 
>files if desierd. We are using this format in BrailleBlaster. I've also 
>studied the epub format and concluded that the DAISY format is better. 

>pdf is the worst format that is generally used, IMHO.

>John

>On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 11:06:09AM -0600, Richard Baldwin wrote:
>> In an earlier post on a different thread, I wrote:
>> 
>> "... I have unfortunately concluded that a sighted assistant will almost
>> always be required for the successful extraction of pictures from pdf files
>> for use by blind students.
>> 
>> It looks to me like it is time for some advocacy group for blind students
>> to declare that pdf is an inaccessible format and is not acceptable as an
>> assistive technology for providing educational material to blind students.
>> 
>> One alternative that is well known, relatively easy to produce, and far
>> less prone to accessibility problems is XHTML. -- But XHTML probably has
>> some warts in the accessibility area as well."
>> 
>> Amanda replied:
>> 
>> "As you know, even if that physics book had no pictures, it would still be
>> inaccessible. If a blind person needed to take basic math and all they had
>> to study was the pdf, they would probably fail. I think that not only
>> should the files be readable, but they should also contain labels pointing
>>  to separate picture files for embossing. ....
>> 
>> I really want to be involved in fixing this situation but don't know where
>> to begin or who to contact. I'm sure part of the problem is lack of
>> awareness on the part of publishers, but that can't be all that's going on
>> here. Do you have any thoughts on how I might get started?"
>> 
>> --End of quotations--
>> 
>> Here are some of my thoughts. First, I am able to answer many of your
>> questions regarding math, physics, computer programming, and engineering,
>> but when you ask questions about how to bring about social change, you are
>> probably asking the wrong person. That is far out of my area of expertise.
>> 
>> However, even though I don't have any answers, I do have some thoughts.
>> 
>> First again, achieving change of this magnitude will probably require group
>> action spearheaded by some recognized organization such as the NFB for
>> example. There is probably little or nothing that an individual can do
>> alone.
>> 
>> Second, that organization will need to have backup from some really capable
>> technical blind people, such as Michael Whapples, Sina Bahram, and John
>> Gardner.
>> 
>> Third, I would suggest that pictures, images, illustrations, charts,
>> diagram, or whatever you choose to call them be considered a very high
>> priority. Here is my reasoning for that suggestion.
>> 
>> For you and your physics book, the most important accessibility problem is
>> the equations, which understandably are more important to you than the
>> pictures. However, you belong to a minority group within a minority group.
>> I may be wrong, but my guess would be that the majority of blind college
>> students are mainly enrolled in degree plans such as English, history,
>> sociology, political science, etc. And (just like the majority of sighted
>> students) most of those students never see an equation and wouldn't know
>> what it is if they saw one one.
>> 
>> However, even those students are confronted with textbooks that contain
>> pictorial illustrations of material that is germane to their field of
>> study. Some even have textbooks that contain pie charts, bar charts, and an
>> occasional line graph, which are difficult to explain with words.
>> 
>> My point is that for the majority of blind students, the thing that is most
>> important to you (equations) is not important to them at all. However, you
>> do have common ground with the majority of blind students when it comes to
>> pictorial illustrations in textbooks. All textbooks have them and all blind
>> students should be at least moderately interested in them. After all, there
>> is a lot of truth to the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand
>> words.
>> 
>> Regarding equations, I believe that the organization that takes the lead in
>> such an effort should flatly state that, while the technology for dealing
>> with images is far from being settled, there are recognized standards for
>> dealing with math in a way that blind students can understand. They should
>> further take the position that it is simply unacceptable for textbook
>> publishers to fail to follow those standards when providing supposedly
>> accessible textbook formats to blind students.
>> 
>> As a minimum, all textbook publishers should be prepared to provide
>> separate files containing all images in a recognized, non-proprietary image
>> format and should be prepared to provide separate files containing all math
>> and all equations in a recognized standard format. Obviously, they should
>> also be prepared to provide information that correlates the material in
>> those files to the page and paragraph of the textbook.
>> 
>> Going beyond the minimum, all of the content of an electronic document that
>> is provided to blind students for purposes of accessibility should be
>> easily extractable intact into a well-documented non-proprietary electronic
>> digital format (other than voice) so that it can be subjected to current
>> and future developments in assistive technology.
>> 
>> Here is an analogy for what I mean by current and future developments in
>> assistive technology. During the days of film cameras, you snapped a
>> picture and unless you operated your own expensive and messy film
>> development laboratory, what you got back from the developer was what you
>> got back. You kept the good photographs and you discarded the bad ones.
>> 
>> However, with the advent of digital photography, tremendous strides have
>> been made in the ability to enhance photographs. Using a program like
>> Photoshop, even a novice who doesn't understand the mathematics involved
>> can often rescue a bad photograph and turn it into a good one. That can be
>> very important if the photograph happens to be the only photograph that you
>> own of your now-deceased grandmother and it was taken during her 101st
>> birthday party.
>> 
>> I predict that there will also be similar advances in assistive technology
>> to make it easier for blind students to understand the various kinds of
>> information in a textbook. I don't know what those advances will be, but I
>> do know that if the information in a textbook is locked inside a
>> proprietary, non-accessible format (like pdf), it won't matter, because it
>> won't be possible to apply the advanced technology to the information.
>> 
>> And by the way, I doubt that this problem is the result of "a lack of
>> awareness" on the part of textbook publishers.
>> 
>> Those are some of my thoughts.
>> 
>> Dick Baldwin
>> 
>> -- 
>> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
>> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
>> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>> 
>> Professor of Computer Information Technology
>> Austin Community College
>> (512) 223-4758
>> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
>> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
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>-- 
>John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
>Abilitiessoft, Inc.
>http://www.abilitiessoft.com
>Madison, Wisconsin USA
>Developing software for people with disabilities

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