Since 2005, legislation has evolved in several countries (France, UK, Germany, USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) in favor of the right of persons with disabilities to improve access digital content online. This is reflected in preventing to create discrimination situations vis-à-vis employees,customers, shareholders, journalists or any stakeholder – situations that would be detrimental to the high end for the company. Several cases of legal actions have recently been filledin several countries. The European directive entered into force on December 22, 2016. It implies that all websites, integrated digital documents (PDF) from public bodies will have to be made accessible according to a relatively restrictive agenda. A monitoring and complaints mechanism is also in place.

The accessibility of PDF documents offers many advantages: An enhanced pro-citizen image: thanks to digital accessibility, participate in the promotion of sustainable development and social responsibility. By making your PDF documents accessible, your image and your responsibility to citizens will be promoted among the general public, your employees and your shareholders. Thus, you ensure them transparent and accessible communication.

When we begin to consider how to provide accessible documents to people who are blind or visually impaired, one of the first steps is to decide which formats will be offered. Unlike documents for sighted people who need legibly printed texts that are appealing in their presentation, blind or visually impaired people have needs that relate to what level of reading vision they have, what assistive technologies they will use, and where they will need to access the information. You may simply decide to offer large print, braille, and cassette tape, as outlined in various regulations; however, combining one or two of these formats with an electronic document type can allow for maximum flexibility and some cost-savings.

To help you comply with these regulations, we have developed an innovative technology solution: e-Accessible-PDF, which renders PDF documents “accessible”, at an ultra-competitive cost. Whether you are in the non-profit sector or the private sector, this solution allows you to expand your audiences and make them more inclusive for people with disabilities.

Numerous PDF documents circulate on the websites. As it stands, these documents are not available for all persons with visual impairments. Braille tracks or voice synthesizer, which these persons use to surf the Internet cannot interpret the particular coding of the PDF format. PDF accessibility is a digital treatment aimed precisely at tagging the document hence making it readable.

There are many different types of vision loss, but this includes people whose visual acuity of the best eye and after correction is between 1 / 20th and 3 / 10th or whose field of view is equal to or less than 20°. They use tools for character magnification or speech synthesis. According to WHO, about 1.3 billion people in the world, have some form of visual impairment. In Europe, the statistics show that almost 10% are affected. These figures include people with blindness, low vision, cognitive and motor impairments. The majority of these individuals are over 50 years old. With the growing and ageing of the population, coupled with a greater prevalence of neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s), the WHO estimates that the number of visually impaired is expected to double by 2050.

For many years we have developed and improved our accessibility and PDF tagging techniques and now have developed a proprietary solution to accelerate the production of Ultra Accessible PDFs. This allows us to produce on a fast turnaround and at competitive costs quality PDFs. We have customers around the world, public or private companies, and meet the international standards defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), such as ADA, Section 508, WCAG 2.0 AA, HHS and PDF / UA. We are able to produce various accessible documents such as PDF, documents from the Microsoft range (word, Excel, Power point) or Epubs. See more details on Accessible PDF at the fair price

Unfortunately, PDF, Word, Excel or PPT documents, which are widely integrated on websites, are rarely adapted to these tools. Our role is to render these documents accessible for processing by reading software so that they can be vocalized in the correct reading order. A blind or visually impaired person can use a “screen reader” to vocalize what is appearing on the screen. There are two main screen readers for desktop computers using Windows: JAWS and NVDA. In addition to reading the elements out loud present on the screen, these screen readers offer a wide range of keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the content with greater ease. Although not free, JAWS is the most popular and most commonly used because it is more advanced in terms of functionality and assistance.

The specificity of PDF is to preserve the layout of a document – fonts, images, graphic objects, etc. – as defined by its author, regardless of the software, operating system and computer used. Thus, the simplest pages (of text), just like complex pages (design combining text, graphic forms, photos, legends, tables, graphics, etc.) are converted into several “blocks” of images. ” These, even if they are text, are not formatted to be interpreted by the speech synthesis systems or the braille tracks, which are utilized by the visually impaired users.

One of the most important steps you can take to simplify the process of creating accessible documents is to make certain, during each phase of composition, that those who are developing the document use word processing software properly. Assuring that this happens may be difficult when several individuals work collaboratively on a project, so designating someone to review a document for inconsistencies could be helpful. Clearly, these concerns about correctly word-processed texts only apply to the creation of large print, braille, and electronic documents.

What are the benefits of the Accessible PDFs we produce ?

– PDFs that meet the following standards PDF / UA, ADA, Section 508, WCAG 2.0 AA, HHS…
– Documents validated through user tests
– Accessible PDFs directly utilisable
– Quick production turnaround
– A fast and customized service

For your users :

– More user-friendly navigation
– The ability to convert text to voice
– Reading on different media (tablets, mobile, screen magnifiers)
– Replacing mouse actions with keyboard combinations
– The possibility of searching in images
– A help to navigation

Braille readers may read braille on paper or they may have access to a device that can display refreshable braille. Refreshable braille displays allow the reader to scroll through the text in an electronic file. Pins on the display move up and down, as needed, in order to generate the braille “dots” that form the letters read with the fingers. Refreshable braille displays can be found as part of portable note-takers that are small machines that typically function for blind people like handheld personal data assistants do for sighted people. Refreshable braille displays may also be attached to a desktop computer. Braille on paper is generated by using software to translate the text into braille and then using a braille printer, known as an embosser, to produce the paper copies. For french visitors see extra info at https://e-accessiblepdf.com/index.php/un-balisage-numerique-permet-laccessibilite-des-pdf-e-accessiblepdf/.