erssie

Thank you too....I lost my brush today after using it for hours....thank goodness for this post. Hadn't realised I had switched to designer persona, but now back in Pixel Persona and my brush is still there. I'm doing my first ever artistic drawing in a graphic programme following ArtistWright on YouTube. I'm not an artist nor a graphic designer so the whole concept is a bit daunting, then when I lost my brush, I thought that was it, drawing ruined, its beyond me, Ill never get it. But I'm back in the lesson....

Just had a chat with my hubbie. He prepares all the online PDFs for work, does all the tagging etc and on his work laptop has accessibility checker software for highest tier. He told me to just give him my finished patterns on Affinity, send it to him and hell put it through his Acrobat writer at work and then through their accessibility checker software and manually check it himself and write tagging for me, correct anything I've done incorrectly. I just have to ensure no tables, full explanations of pics and diagrams included and he'll tag those for me. He'll ensure I don't end up with those nesting errors or style inconsistency problems etc. I am also talking to several knitwear designers who run accessibility checks for usability which is basically the type of instructions that you give knitters that differ from knitters with high vision. There is a Worldwide database of low vision knitting patterns and when you load one up, a checker has to approve them too. Obviously I'll try to get it right but if they get thrown off at least I know what to correct. I've seen some people get really offended if their pattern gets 'rejected' for non compliancy and other people commiserating with them 'I'm so sorry you have to go through this, its not fair' etc and I'm thinking why? If its not right, its not right, and you go back and fix issues. It's not a personal attack it's a requirement for access. And some people say 'well I tried my best, and THEY don't like it, that's all I'm doing. I don't have to do this'

I have been trying to get my head round tagging for Headers. I wish that Header styles in Affinity could do that, I have been creating them in a logical order, but not sure how to tag it without using html. As a person with no profession or business, its quite a stretch. I can't type or navigate that well, have a hand disability and visual issues myself and tolerate about 15 mins screen time in one sitting. Thank God for speech to text. I don't know html. I am just hoping to write up two pdfs for charity, and I haven't worked for almost a decade. If I had Acrobat would I be able to tag in that? Or in Affinity itself? There's an additional problem not just how it reads etc, but in the fact knitting instructions are standardised and don't get recognised as language. But the industry requires those standard abbreviations which vary for each country and that is even between English speaking countries. Can I tag that as normal text, if its where you put the normal text? And there's pacing in how it is read out, is there a way of getting a screen reader to do a longer pause or maybe stop at the end of a line? Can I get any tag in there to tell a screen reader to just go back to beginning of one line? Someone will have to write some software for navigating a knitting pattern it is not like a normal PDF and isn't used passively like reading is. If knitters with visual impairment can't grasp an instruction, or make a mistake, they might need to rip work out and go back a row or a round, or it could become confusing. I am putting in Row or Round numbers can they be tagged for a search? There is a lot I do not know....

I'm not a company, I'm just little ol' me but I design knitting patterns for charity. Some of them include charts and diagrams. Blind people do knit but those charts/diagrams are often inaccessible. I've just spent a few very long days translating a charted design into line by line instructions for knitting the stitches, and in my rough pattern in Word I have my alt text descriptions on my photographs etc. Word creates a pdf that my blind knitting group have told me is working with alt text on the photos etc. I would now like to lay that out in Affinity Publisher, was struggling as I am new to it, and could not find a place to put a text description of a photo, so have ended up here. I still want to do my work in Affinity Publisher and would like to avoid using Adobe products although i have a free Acrobat Reader DC. I understand that Affinity is not going to give me an accessible pdf as far as trying to put alt text to my photos, which is a shame. But if I create a PDF from Affinity, will it be editable by any editor to add the descriptions on photos afterwards to comply with various screen readers or Read Aloud software? And does that mean Id have to subscribe to a PDF Editor. I have spent days and days, with a hand disability and needing a lot of support, to try and make my patterns accessible. I'm willing to do what it takes, and I am not a company just an individual, but its frustrating to not find the tools to do so. And I cannot afford Adobe subscriptions or other ones out there, which is why I purchased Affinity. I was going to volunteer as well, free of charge as I work so slowly with my disability, to translate others knitting patterns or craft literature into accessible documents so that people with impaired vision can easily listen to instructions and knit along at the same time. I'm scared that I might get prosecuted in the future for doing that if I don't have the right tools. It'd be a crying shame if I have to go from doing my own layouts to just using Word again. That is an awkward thing to use, I hate it. I'm already complying with regards to text size, type and layout to standards set for knitwear designers, its just the alt text thing I can't do. I also cannot afford to pay accessibility editors to do it as I am volunteering anyway. Can someone tell me where after Affinity they are going to put their alt text on? And if its not available automatically, can I just put a readable caption below/or above the photo in line with it for it to be read out?

Thanks for your prompt reply. I would be mainly working on a Surface Laptop Studio PC with physical keyboard, but occasionally might just do quick sketches or doodles on a portable tablet to manipulate later so sounds like it would work ok. My Laptop studio very conveniently folds down to a very big tablet and a lot of Affinity still works using the onscreen keyboard. Its just a little fiddly as it obscures your view sometimes. But its ok for drawing and then I fold out to PC to manipulate a drawing. At the moment I have no mouse and am scared to get one as with my hand disabilities they caused so much damage I had to stop designing for almost 10 yrs. So I do a lot of pen and trackpad stuff. I miss a mouse but even vertical or ergonomic caused me to get hardened tissues and scarring like cement causing me to not be able to grip. Im waiting for the Microsoft Accessibility kit but its not due in UK until Autumn/Fall

I'm asking in another thread if Surface tablets are compatible with the Affinity Suite as I was worried about buying a new Windows tablet only to find out its a cut down O/S or maybe a fork of it adapted for a smoother tablet/media experience. The Pro 8 tablet has 16 GB RAM and an i7 chip so should have the processing capability. I've used both Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Designer on my laptop PC and both have frozen on me a few times when I've had it folded into touchscreen mode but came back to life if I waited then folded it into physical keyboard back to PC/keyboard mode again. And, I had a look at the task manager and found Affinity a bit flaky if I had other apps open and running. In general I've found graphics apps, once you get stuck in slow down a lot the more you ask of it and the device doesn't like me having other apps running really. But I often want to listen to podcasts/music or watch tutorials if I'm learning some Affinity skills. I wonder if I had an i7 Nd 32GB RAM whether that would've worked faster and better. Every sophisticated graphics software is heavy on processing. I've got 16G RAM but only an i5 chip.

I know there's no Affinity Suite For Android tablets but I'd consider getting a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet as that's Windows. Does Affinity work on Surface tablets then? I use desktop PC windows Affinity but would love it on a smaller tablets to sketch on the go and proof read without having to convert to another format to access it. Although some tablets are Windows run I don't know if it's a full desktop o/S or a fork or cut down. Microsoft couldn't help and just advised I ask the Apps provider if their software is compatible.