[NABS-L] PDF types

[Jorge Alejandro Paez]

Hey all:
So I got this interesting question a while back from someone that I’m unable to help them with and I was having the same question so figure I’d post it on here.
I’ve worked with lots of PDFs and I notice that unless it’s from an accessible source like Vital Source, it’s a hit or a miss as far as e-books.
What was interesting is it’s the same thing with my scanner.
I have an HP scanner printer and I’ve been using the scanner to scan things in and upload as needed for different things,
and sometimes they were fillable pdfs in which I filled them out, printed them and scanned them back in to email, and I noticed it was fully accessible both times, when I filled it out and when I scanned it back in I could still read it.
Yesterday though I downloaded a form, filled it out as a .doc and scanned it back in as a PDF and found it completely inaccessible.
In other words the document was there and I used sighted help to make sure it went through fine but interestingly enough when I emailed it to myself I found the new PDF version of the form was inaccessible, and consisted of 2 pages that all said “image.”
Anyone know what the difference is that determines whether a file is accessible or not?
I got this off of someone asking to try and explain to their home owner’s association what the difference was between the 2 types and I thought that would be applicable to students as well so I was wondering if anyone knew what the actual answer was.

Thanks,

JorgeJorge