Re: 2.4 Proposed Modules - gpdf

[Peter Korn <peter korn sun com>]

Hi Murray,

> > From: Bill Haneman [mailto:bill haneman sun com]
> > On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 14:24, Sean Middleditch wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2003-05-01 at 09:15, Murray Cumming Comneon com wrote:
> > > > >   gpdf - An xpdf-based PDF viewer.
> > > > >   http://freshmeat.net/projects/gpdf/
> >
> > I think this is a good (and very important!) accessibility
> > candidate
> 
> Do you mean it helps accessibility as is, or is a candidate for
> accessibility work to be done on it?

There is significant work needed in at least one PDF viewer so that we can
make PDF content accessible.  The widget that is displaying the PDF content
needs to fully implement ATK (or some other accessibility API that bridges
down to the GNOME Accessibility AT-SPI layer).

> > but
> > there are some _serious_ accessibility issues around PDF.
> 
> Are these problems with the PDF format or with the gpdf PDF viewer? Is this
> anything that should influence our decision to add gpdf to GNOME?

There is also significant work needed in most PDF content in order to make
PDF accessible.  This comes in three flavors: (1) potential enhancements to
the specification of accessibility tags to make sure that all the necesary
information is conveyed; (2) better adherance in the documents that are out
there to implementing these tags; which leads to (3) better (and accessible)
tools for creating PDF with these tags and adding these tags to existing PDF
(and having these tools on GNOME).  For more information from Adobe on this,
see http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutionsacc.html and their
"Access Agent" that is part of their Capture tool for Windows:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/agentpack/main.html


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team