[g-a-devel] Re: [Kde-accessibility] PDF accessibility

[Gary Cramblitt <garycramblitt comcast net>]

On Thursday 01 September 2005 05:09 am, Bill Haneman wrote:
> Gary Cramblitt wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >Olaf Schmidt mentioned that we ought to have support for Accessibility PDF
> >docs in KDE and that should be a goal for KPDF.  I doubt however that most
> >documents are Accessibility PDF, so we still need a solution for them.
> >Someone should also take a look at the PDF printer and other PDF output
> >capabilities in KDE to ensure they produce Accessibile PDF.  I am pretty
> > sure the PDF Printer does not as it tends to produce image only.
>
> Note also that there is more to PDF accessibility than just text
> extraction; use cases such as magnification and physical/mobility
> restrictions place other requirements on the the viewer.  For instance,
> character position and bounds coordinates for onscreen PDF text, and
> keyboard navigation via a text caret, are both needed.  This means that
> just pulling out the "accessibility tags" even for "accessibile PDF"
> isn't sufficient.

The immediate goal is to speak pdfs, but you are quite right about other uses.  
Brad is trying to develop a general module for converting pdfs to xml.  The 
module could be used as a plugin for KPDF, but perhaps also in a general 
screen reader.  The idea is to develop a series of loadable modules for 
extracting accessibility information from document contents.  The module 
would probably be loaded based on mime type and perhaps would interface with 
AT-SPI.  Do you know if there has been any work on a standard for such a 
thing?

>
> >The best place for accessibility discussions would be the
> >kde-accessibility.kde.org mailing list.  Subscribe at
> >https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility
>
> I would like to request that any PDF accessibility discussions also CC
> the gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org list.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill Haneman
>
> >On the other hand, perhaps it should be discussed in front of the PDF
> >developers.  Where do most hang out?

-- 
Gary Cramblitt (aka PhantomsDad)
KDE Text-to-Speech Maintainer
http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/index.php