[nfbmi-talk] now i'm getting inaccessible docs from ocr

[joe harcz Comcast]

I wish people would read this. It's a hhuge problem in Michigan and Cannon and MPAS and others know it. But now on some of my complaints to the OCR office in Cleveland I'm getting image based docs...I simply can't read them. And that in and of itself is a violation of 504, 508 and the ADA.



Joe





Accessibility of Electronic Documents and Websites 

This guide provides a primer on making electronic documents and websites accessible to 

individuals who are blind or have low vision, and also furnishes various resources that can 

assist in examining accessibility of electronic media further. 

Document Accessibility 

Most documents created in Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect meet minimum 

accessibility standards. Most screen readers – which are software programs that work 

together with a speech synthesizer to read aloud everything contained on a computer 

screen to people who cannot see or read text – do well with these file formats. Adobe PDF 

format is also considered to be an accessible format in most circumstances. However, 

PDF documents that are image documents, rather than text documents are not accessible. 

(See below for more details on PDF documents and non-text media.) 

To check whether a document in Adobe PDF format is accessible, click on the “Select Text” 

icon (usually designated with an icon on the tool bar that has a “T” or actually says “Select 

Text.”) If you can select the text of the document with your mouse, then the document is 

accessible. If you are not able to, the document is likely just a picture of a scanned 

document and is not accessible. 

Pictures and other non-text media 

The use of any non-text media (e.g., Clip Art, pictures, etc.) with any of 

the accessible electronic document formats discussed above can make a 

document inaccessible. However, this problem can be solved by including 

a text description of the media. For example, if a photograph is used 

within a publication, the photo would need a description of the image 

underneath it. This same technique can be used for clipart, video, 

signature images, and even audio clips. 

Generally, there are two ways to add text to an image. Text that explains 

the image can be manually added. Alternatively, programs like Microsoft 

Word have a feature that allows a caption to be added to a photo. For Figure 1.

instructions about adding captions to pictures in Word documents, go to: Woman walking 

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance and type “photo caption” into the with guide dog. 

search window. 

Scanned documents 

Documents scanned using a digital copier or any scanning devices are converted into an 

image. Because scanned documents are merely pictures of a document they are not 

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accessible. (See discussion regarding non-text media above.) Scanned documents can be 

made accessible by using any interpreting software program known as Optical Character 

Recognition (OCR) software. OCR software (e.g., OmniPage Pro Software, Soft Writer) is 

able interpret the image and convert it into a text format. Even newer copier systems that 

scan directly into Adobe PDF format have these same accessibility problems and will need 

to have some level of interpreting (OCR) software to make the document accessible. 

Web Page Accessibility 

Web pages must also meet the same standards of accessibility as electronic documents. 

The same rules apply for images on web pages and special care should be taken to 

provide description tags with the html document for any graphic objects, such as images, 

tables, graphs, etc. There are several guides regarding Web accessibility that be found on 

the World Wide Web Consortium’s website: http://www.w3.org/wai/. 

Document and Web Accessibility Resources 

Adobe PDF 

-Adobe Access: http://access.adobe.com/ 

-Acrobat Accessibility: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_info.html 

Bobby (free service will allow you to test web pages and help expose and repair barriers to 

accessibility): www.cast.org/bobby 

Microsoft Accessibility: www.microsoft.com/enable 

Microsoft Word Photo Captioning: http://office.microsoft.com/assistance 

PowerPoint Accessibility, University Strathclyde: www.microsoft.com/enable 

Text Reader Information, Landmark College: 

http://www.landmarkcollege.org/institute/assistive_technology/reading_text_readers.html 

Usablenet (provides software that allows web developers and organizations to automate 

website accessibility and usability testing, repair and delivery. Provides more in-depth 

guidance than Bobby): http://www.usablenet.com/ 

Web Design Accessibility, University of Florida: 

http://www.at.ufl.edu/accessibility/AccWeb/alternatives/ea_text.html 

Word Wide Web Consortium: www.w3.org 

If you have any questions or would like more resources on this 

or other electronic documentation accessibility information, 

please contact Matt Hayden via email at Matt.Hayden at ndrn.org.