Re: [orca-list] Pdf accessibility in Linux was Re: Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

[Thomas Ward <thomasward1978 gmail com>]

Hi,

On 8/2/12, Jason White <jason jasonjgw net> wrote:
> The challenge would be to implement tagged PDF, which is the part of the
> specification of most relevance to accessibility. As far as I know, there
> are no free software implementations of this, except for LibreOffice, which can
> write it but can't read it. I think ConTeXt can also write it.

Hmmm...I do see the problem here. I took a quick look at this issue
and you are right. It seems the open specification of pdf, especially
open  source pdf document viewers, lacks the ability to properly
handle the accessibility tags that allows Adobe Reader to present the
document to Jaws, Window-Eyes, NVDA, etc. Therefore the real problem
does seem to be at the open specification level as well as the
libraries that pdf viewers use to read pdf documents.

> The solution would be to take the best existing PDF library and add support
> for tagged PDF.

It seems like it based on my own understanding of the access issues
involved here.

Cheers!