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AcceDe initiative

By default PDF documents are not accessible to certain users with disabilities. Among the users affected, there are, for example:

• Blind users:

  Blind people use their computers with screen readers. These devices use software which either read the information displayed on the screen (with a voice synthesizer) or convert it to Braille (with a Braille terminal). With this type of software, it is difficult to understand the contents of a PDF file if it is not structured with tags. The reading order is not always logical, the information contained in images is not read, and the absence of a title structure makes navigating such a document long and complicated.

• Partially sighted users:

  Customizing the display of a PDF document in Adobe Reader often poses difficulties. Changing the text or background colour in order to improve readability does not always work. For example, some background colours cannot be modified.

• Users with a motor disability:

  The rigid linear navigation imposed on those who read PDF documents exclusively with the aid of a keyboard makes it difficult to navigate in the document. For example, the tab order of links or form fields is not always logical.

The solution for making PDF documents accessible is to structure them with the appropriate tags. Currently, this solution is rarely implemented, specifically for the following reasons:

• The concept of a structured or tagged document is not widely known by those who produce PDF files.
• There is no good quality documentation for learning how to tag documents.

In France, as part of their policy for people with disabilities, more and more large companies want the PDF documents they publish to be accessible. For this reason nine French companies came together to form the AcceDe project to increase the accessibility of PDF documents.

One of the objectives of AcceDe was to create educational guides and manuals for those who want to make their PDF documents accessible.

For any comment about this document, please contact Atalan, the coordinator of the AcceDe project, at the following email address: contact[at]atalan.fr.

Project coordinated by