[LINK] Government gives thumbs down to PDF format

[linda rouse]

On 1/12/10 8:22 PM, Kim Holburn wrote:
> http://www.itnews.com.au/News/240304,government-gives-thumbs-down-to-pdf-format.aspx
<snip>
>> While the use of PDF files was prolific and preferred over other formats, the study also found that:
>>
>> 	• 80 percent of respondents do not complement the use of PDF files without alternate formats;
>> 	• PDF files are used by a wide variety of organisations but those are blind or have low vision experience many problems with multi-column designs;
>> 	• Screen readers are unable to interact with a document saved as an image-only PDF file because images are not accessible to people who are blind.
>> 	• Employing workaround methods to access inaccessible PDF files results in a degraded experience when compared to accessing equivalent documents in other formats.

> http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/pdf-accessibility-study/index.html

Notwithstanding the above issues, I am surprised no-one has mentioned 
the Read Out Loud menu option... I confess I only found it by accident 
but it does quite a good job of reading the text. I did not check that 
it read the columns correctly though as it was proving too disrupting to 
my colleagues! Which is prolly why noone has mentioned it...

cheers
Linda

-- 
Linda Rouse, Information Manager
DataBasics Pty Limited
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