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Topic: RE: PDF tables (Via Email)
Conf: (P-PDF) PDF Accessibility, Msg: 127922
From: Duff_Johnson
Date: 2/17/2005 10:14 AM

> Is it possible to use tags to make complex PDF tables
> accessible to visually disabled people who use JAWS, for
> example. That is, can you add or adjust tags (or embed them
> using your source tool) that function as row and column
> headers and that allow screen readers to read the row and
> column header along with the cell data?

While you can embed tags to describe a (simple) table's structure in
PDF, the unfortunate reality at this time is that JAWS does not
currently read those tags... it currently ignores them, and reads the
table text to all intents and purposes as it would a paragraph.

You can improve this state of affairs with judicious tagging of the
table to provide a better-than-useless reading order, but the experience
of the content is still linear, not at all what you really want from a
table.

To change this state of affairs, Freedom Scientific (the makers of JAWS)
and other accessibility software developers need to get their
applications to read the table structure in PDF as it does in HTML.
Given the ubiquity of PDF, this doesn't seem so much to ask.

Duff Johnson
Principal, Document Solutions Consulting
President and CEO, Document Solutions, Inc.
----------------
P - 617-283-4226
E - duff.johnson@document-solutions.com
W - http://www.document-solutions.com/consulting.htm