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Request for a statement about PDF accessibility from Serif please


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There is a thread

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/65212-tagged-pdf-support-for-accessibility/

that has been going since 2018.

Can Serif make a statement in that thread about what it will do about this important issue please?

William Overington

Monday 25 January 2021

 

 

 

Until December 2022, using a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10 in England. From January 2023, using an HP laptop running Windows 11 in England.

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  • 1 month later...

Adding my weight to this request after a sudden end of job new request from a client. Have tackled colour usage for sight issue legibility but am unable to get a PDF that 'reads' in anything but most garbled form.Trying to tackle in Acrobat doesn't work as no structure is present to begin with, some long sections of paragraph text are spelt out letter by letter at high speed.

Have tried reordering layers in an attempt to alter random read order but this makes no difference.

If there is any method of working with/around this please advise. And as many others have stated this is now becoming a major request and compliance issue.

Mac Studio M1 Max 32GB RAM running Sequioa 15 OS
ASUS ProArt screen and Hewlett Packard HD second screen. 
Affinity Suite 2.5.5 and Beta releases

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REname your styles as HTML tags in Publisher...  It is a pain but you can structure PDFs in Acrobat DC.Look at document Structure in Acrobat DC.  

It would so much better if Serif got on board. The good news is that an ePub uses HTML and CSS as well as accessible documents .... it is all about 
document structure and syntax.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

Hi! I am desperately eager for accessibility features as well. I publish for clients around the globe, and these features are essential. I absolutely love affinity products and suggest them to all my colleagues, but the lack of tags and reading order makes affinity products unviable for many folks. I understand it's probably a big development lift, so I'm just chiming in saying I appreciate the effort and am anxiously awaiting news.

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5 minutes ago, typeglyph said:

LORA

There is an added benefit to getting tags and reading order.  HTML and XML which is also epubs. This lets them hit two birds at once. XML also does database merging and GREP. 

Prof. Shecter MFA RGD

Or, putting it in a vegan way ...

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/bird0001.htm

William

 

 

 

Until December 2022, using a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10 in England. From January 2023, using an HP laptop running Windows 11 in England.

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I found a free online tool (PAVE) to get your PDFs tagged. It's not perfect, although they really tried to create a good product. But at least you get most tags in your pdf without the extra costs of using Acrobat DC Pro.

You could use the free PDF XChange Editor to adjust the tags. I'm still not sure if you can make all the changes with XChange like with Acrobat. It can't tag the whole document at once, but I think you can put them in one by one. Windows only.

Check the whole thing with PAC. That's the best tool for automated checking and also for checking the reading order (=tag order), the texts, the use of the right semantic tags (screen reader preview button) and so on. It's for Windows only.

These three tools won't solve the problem but at least it's something.

 

https://pave-pdf.org

https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-editor

https://www.access-for-all.ch/ch/pdf-werkstatt.html

 

I hope Affinity Publisher will be able to create proper tags in one of the next versions. Without that the app will become useless for most users in the coming years because of changing laws. Within a few years most countries won't allow inaccessible PDFs on commercial websites anymore. Many governments (US, UK, EU) aren't allowed to use inaccessible PDFs already.

I like the Affinity products, so please solve this problem, Serif!!

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Johanna, 

This is good news, sort of.  

Windows only.

In a number of Canadian provinces like Ontario, Accessibility is a must now.  
As a professor teaching inclusive design, and looking for “other solutions” in software, Serif’s products WERE on the list.

The Company’s myopic vision is sad. The gig economy could have used another player. 

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A metaphor relating to a disability!

Is that desirable?

Hardly inclusive to those of us who need to wear glasses for that condition.

Perhaps it is the wrong type of inclusive.

William

 

Until December 2022, using a Lenovo laptop running Windows 10 in England. From January 2023, using an HP laptop running Windows 11 in England.

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  • 1 year later...
On 1/26/2021 at 4:04 AM, Leigh said:

Morning all! It's a feature our developers would like to add but they currently have no timescale for when that will be, sorry! When we have information to share on this feature, we'll let everyone know.

That was on January 2021.

2 years later - still crickets! I just bought v2 and now I realize there is no way to create accessible pdfs, which essentially poses to eliminate anywhere from 10% to 20% of readers! So if I can't do any client work in Publisher, what is it good for then?

Dear Serif moderators, can we please inquire about the state of this topic on your roadmap?

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  • Staff
On 3/11/2023 at 12:57 AM, HawaiiAna said:

That was on January 2021.

2 years later - still crickets! I just bought v2 and now I realize there is no way to create accessible pdfs, which essentially poses to eliminate anywhere from 10% to 20% of readers! So if I can't do any client work in Publisher, what is it good for then?

Dear Serif moderators, can we please inquire about the state of this topic on your roadmap?

Unfortunately no update on this but I know the developers are keen to add this to the app but it all comes down to time and resources. As far as I can see we've not stated anywhere that V2 has these features 🤔

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