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Comment from Adobe

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Thanks for an interesting post. Roger Hudson is also thinking hard about accessibility support on his blog at http://www.dingoaccess.com. You wrote:

But what about a complex data table or an interactive form? Can you use PDF for those purposes and still guarantee that people with assistive technologies will be able to read them? If not, then PDF cannot be said to be accessibility supported for data tables or interactive forms.

• Can you use PDF for accessible complex data tables? Yes.
• Can you use PDF for accessible interactive forms? Yes.
• Can you come up with a data table or form that is so complex that it is not possible for a user with a disability to successfully read the document or interact with the form? Yes, as is the case with any format.

The WCAG 2.0 implementation report highlights a lot of information to bolster these claims, and we are currently working with the WCAG working group to provide techniques for PDF (and Flash) that will appear on the W3C site alongside techniques for other technologies. Take a look at the implementation report for PDF at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/implementation-report/PDF_accessibility_support_statement and you'll find information about tables and forms within it. So in response to your question of what to tell your client, there are a number of options. You might tell them to stop using PDF, and maybe that would work for them, but they may have sound reasons for using it and then then they would hopefully ask how to make the documents and forms accessible. Adobe provides a number of resources to help document authors and form developers address accessibility. These can be found at the Adobe accessibility web site (http://www.adobe.com/accessibility).