Many thanks to everyone for posts and personal replies on this thread. I
appreciate you all taking the time to respond.
The opinions that most people have kindly put forward are very similar
to my own, but I guess that I wanted to make sure that I wasn't about to
give an inappropriate 'knee-jerk' response to the client, or was unaware
of options that might be appropriate. I intend making a counter-proposal
along the lines that have been suggested and will let you know what happens.
Regards,
Nick
Andrew Maben wrote:
On Jun 7, 2007, at 6:16 PM, Nick Gleitzman wrote:
Nick Roper wrote:
Just to confirm, the recommendation from the agency is to replace
existing html content with PDF version, not to provide PDFs as an
additional alternative.
Nick, you've made it fairly clear that your question is about
accessiblity in PDFs, rather than whether or not it's a good idea to
use them - but I'm afraid the most common answer you're likely to get
is going to be: don't rely on them exclusively.
The web is for HTML; the ability to deliver other file types is
possible, but not the best option if accessiblity is desired. As
printable alternatives, sure, I guess (but what's wrong with a good
print style sheet?) - but I'm thinking of a number of Aust Govt sites
which insist on delivering critical info as PDFs and even Word docs,
which I find astonishingly short-sighted, as well as probably an abuse
of accessiblity guidelines, if not legislation. What if I don't have
Word installed (and why should I?)?
The site may certainly need an IA overhaul, if it's been mangled over
time by too many cooks - but that's no reason to stop using HTML in
favour of PDF, surely. I think the site owners should have it pointed
out to them that the agency's recommendations are simply out of touch
with what's needed.
From WCAG Samurai Errata:
"*We ban most PDFs*: PDFs that should be HTML are banned unless they are
accompanied by HTML. All other PDFs have to be tagged."
Andrew
109B SE 4th Av
Gainesville
FL 32601
Cell: 352-870-6661
http://www.andrewmaben. <http://www.andrewmaben.com/>net
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/"In a well designed user interface, the user should not
need //instructions."/
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