ISO 14289 What Implementers Need to Know
UA
Duff Johnson, NetCentric Technologies
About Duff Johnson 1996 Started the world’s first PDF-dedicated electronic document service bureau
1997 Developed and delivered a PDF-based scanned image segmentation solution for STM publishers
1998 Developed 30,000 interactive PDF forms
2000 First to offer commercial PDF tagging services
2005 Chair, AIIM’s PDF/UA Committee (later ISO 14289)
2008 Vice-Chair, US Committee for ISO 32000
2010 Vice-Chair of the PDF/A Competence Center
2011 Project Co-Leader, Chair, US Committee for ISO 32000
I’m NOT a developer, but I know how to irritate them Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
In this Presentation
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Background
History, Creators, Purpose, Benefits, Audience, Climate, WCAG
A Fast Introduction
Key Terms, Areas of Coverage, Quick Tour of Requirements
Some examples
Let’s look at a nice, simple page...
How Developers should think about accessibility
Writers, Readers, What’s Really Important, Explaining to Users
Beyond PDF/UA-1
Introduction to Universally Accessible PDF
Background Duff Johnson
2012 - 03 - 23
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Duff Johnson
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23
The History of PDF/UA 1993 - PDF released by Adobe Systems
1999 - WCAG 1.0 published
2000 - Adobe introduces Tagged PDF (Acrobat 5)
2001 - US Government’s Section 508 regulations go into force
2004 - AIIM’s PDF/UA project begins
2008 - PDF Reference 1.7 becomes ISO 32000
2008 - WCAG 2.0 published
2010 - PDF/UA accepted as a draft ISO Standard
2012 - PDF/UA to publish as ISO 14289
The Creators of PDF/UA AIIM - ISO secretariat in the US & originators of PDF/UA
Commercial software organizations and individual consultants including:
Adobe Systems, Microsoft, NetCentric Technologies, Design Science, Karlen Communications, AccessibleIT, University of Illinois, Crawford Technologies, Callas Software and many others between 2004 - 2012
ISO - The International Organization for Standards
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
Duff Johnson
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
The Audience for PDF/UA
Software developers
Those evaluating tools which claim to make accessible PDF files
Those evaluating PDF readers which claim to consume PDF/UA-conforming files
Those evaluating assistive technology (AT) which claims to consume PDF/UA-conforming files
Interested end users and those advocating accessibility in electronic documents
The Purpose of PDF/UA Define accessible PDF by providing normative technical requirements for accessibility features in ISO 32000-1 PDF files, viewers and assistive technology
Provide detailed technical requirements necessary to accessibility but absent from ISO 32000-1
Provide a single normative understanding of what constitutes “accessibility” in PDF technology
Provide implementers with a clear means of achieving implementing WCAG 2.0 in the PDF context
While accessible PDF has been possible since 2000, the lack of universal understanding on what constitutes “accessibility” in PDF has impaired development of tagged PDF writers and processors
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org 2012 - 03 - 23
Benefits for End Users Enables a top-quality reading and navigating experience with all types of conforming assistive technology
Enables high-quality results when accessing PDF content on mobile devices using a conforming reader
Improves text and content reuse (e.g. copy & paste, extract to HTML) when permitted by security settings
Ensures high quality text search results when used with
conforming technology
Benefits for Organizations
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org A
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23
Duff Johnson
Enhanced communications with persons with disabilities
Enhanced compliance with accessibility laws and regulations, reducing liability exposure
Assistance in meeting WCAG 2.0 requirements
Guidance for software and document procurement
Verifiable performance with search engines
Eligibility for PDF/A (the archive standard for PDF) conformance level “a”
The Business Case
Duff Johnson
2012 - 03 - 23
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Government agencies increasingly require accessible
Information & Communications Technology (ICT)
Other technologies might be easier to make accessible but can’t solve the same business problems as PDF
Solutions that depend on deliverables in PDF cannot afford to wait for regulators, attorneys and consumers to rise up and demand improved accessibility
In the past, you might never have bothered much with Section 14 (Interchange) of ISO 32000-1...
...that’s about to change
What About WCAG 2.0?
Duff Johnson
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
PDF/UA does not attempt to replicate WCAG 2.0, but it does provide technical detail necessary for conformance with the portions of WCAG 2.0 relevant to PDF content
WCAG 2.0 “PDF Techniques” are not normative, technically insufficient and often implementation-specific
Subject to the limitations of non-PDF content (e.g. multimedia) if present, conformance with PDF/UA implies conformance with WCAG 2.0
A document mapping PDF/UA to WCAG 2.0 is under
development by AIIM’s US Committee, ETA Q2, 2012
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
A Fast Introduction to Universally Accessible PDF
ISO 14289-1:2012
Key Terms In PDF, tags denote logical reading order and semantics
Unless tagged, PDF content has no logical reading order
Unless tagged, PDF content has no semantics (heading, paragraphs, tables, etc)
Merely adding tags isn’t enough - tagging must be correct
Artifacts (running heads, page numbers, purely decorative images) shall not be tagged as content
Assistive Technology provides users with disabilities a means of reading and navigating electronic documents
Duff Johnson
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
PDF Documents & Forms
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
Distinguishing between “real” and “artifact” content
Semantically appropriate tags in a logical reading order
Information shall not be conveyed by contrast, color, format or layout, or by combinations thereof, unless the content is tagged to reflect all intended meaning
OCR’d text shall be corrected
Natural language shall be
declared
Meaningful graphics shall
include alternative text
Headings shall proceed in a
valid sequence eg: “H1, H2, H3”, not “H1, H3,
H2”
Embedding files in PDF is
permitted; these “should” be
accessible in their own right
LiveCycle Designer dynamic XFA forms are prohibited
Annotations (e.g. notes) shall be tagged correctly
Media clips (e.g. movies) shall include alt. text
Scripts (e.g. form validation) shall operate in an accessible fashion
REQUIREMENTS
PDF Readers
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Process all structure types and attributes
Shall make artifacts available to AT
Shall not interfere with any AT feature
Shall announce visible or focus changes from Actions
Navigation via PageLabels, structure and bookmarks
Read alternate descriptions for annotations
Fully process form fields (value, state, role, type)
Media playback controls made available
REQUIREMENTS
Assistive Technology
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Shall have the ability to process and represent all structure types, attributes and key values to the user
Be able to navigate using PageLabels, structure hierarchy (tags) and outlines (bookmarks)
Allow navigation zoom values to be overridden by the user
REQUIREMENTS
Let’s take a look at a nice,
simple page, ok?
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA 2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
What is “real”? How do you
define “real”? - Morpheus
Let’s look at
that simple
page...
How many
images do you
see?
Are these “images” as well?
Or maybe THESE are the images?
Or is this just
one image?
What if the
page is
scanned?
Only one
image?
How you scan
can also make a
difference!
To do PDF/UA
right you’ll need to segment the
scanned image
...taking care to distinguish
image captions from inline text!
How developers should think
about PDF accessibility
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Writers Sequence content streams from the logical structure viewpoint -and think outside the “page” when you do so
Prompt the user to specify semantic relationships
Ensure the user is prompted to validate alternative text
Fonts and character encoding based on PDF/A standards
Scanning? Plan for image segmentation, OCR and OCR cleanup - all before tagging!
Respect the limitations of automated verification, because the end-users will know even if you don’t
Readers
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Don’t implement “reflow” based on content order, as implied in ISO 32000-1. ISO 32000-2 makes it clear that such usage should be based on tags
The simplest way to think about correct logical structure:
“Based on the tags, how would this look exported to HTML?”
Artifacts aren’t irrelevant; they’re simply distinct from the document content
Logical structure allows for RICH navigation, selection,
extraction, localization, analysis and more! Enjoy!
What’s Really Important All real content is represented in the logical structure tree
Nodes in the tag-tree are in correct logical order
Nodes in the tag-tree are tagged with correct semantics
Artifact content is “tagged” Artifact
Non-standard tags are role-mapped to standard tags
Fonts include valid ToUnicode entries
Content images include alternative text
Annotations (forms, notes, etc) are represented in the logical structure
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org 2012 - 03 - 23
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23
Explaining it to the User
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Simulate the classic test-case for accessible electronic content; the use of a suitably capable software designed for blind users such as JAWS, Window Eyes, NVDA
“Preview” in HTML (which is one way to implement reflow)
Display highlights indicating content handing (artifact, etc) and sequence, including tags spanning pages
The author / verifier has inalienable responsibilities:
Verifying “correct” logical order as required
Content images include acceptable alternative text
Verifying valid uses of color, contrast, etc
Top 10, in order of priority 1. If used, document security must allow support for AT
2. Valid font encoding and Unicode mapping
3. Structured PDF and a tag tree
4. All real content referenced in the tag tree in correct logical reading order, conforming use of Form XObjects
5. Artifact content marked as such
6. Tags use valid semantics
7. Images include alternative text
8. Headings are valid
9. Language is set (document and/or tag level)
10.Rules are followed for annots, media, actions, etc, etc.
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric
Vice Chair of the &
PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
Beyond PDF/UA-1
Future Development
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Improvements to the text
Updates based on
experience in the field
New features in PDF 2.0:
Alt. text for Artifacts
Bates number support
New table algorithm
Line numbering
MathML
New tags, including:
Admonition
Continued List
Abbreviation
Strong & Emphasis
Sub & Superscript
Sidebar & Callout
Line Number & Group
Redaction & Reason
Can You Join TC 171 SC 2?
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org 2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
Australia ( SA )
Austria ( ASI )
Belgium ( NBN )
Bulgaria ( BDS )
Canada ( SCC )
China ( SAC )
Estonia ( EVS )
France ( AFNOR )
Germany ( DIN )
Japan ( JISC )
Korea, Republic of
( KATS )
Russian Fed. ( GOST R )
Slovakia ( SUTN )
South Africa ( SABS )
Spain ( AENOR )
Sweden ( SIS )
Switzerland ( SNV )
Ukraine ( DSSU )
United Kingdom ( BSI )
United States ( ANSI )
Observing Countries
Argentina ( IRAM )
Denmark ( DS )
Netherlands ( NEN )
New Zealand ( SNZ )
Norway ( SN )
Poland ( PKN )
Romania ( ASRO )
Yes! I want to help!
Duff Johnson
2012 - 03 - 23 ISO 14289 - PDF/UA A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org
President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
Join your own country’s delegation to ISO’s TC 171 SC 2
Join the in-person and teleconference meetings of the ISO Committee for PDF/UA
Join the PDF Association’s PDF/UA Competence Center. First in-person meeting is THURSDAY (March 29) here in Basel!
More information:
AIIM’s PDF Wiki pdf.editme.com
PDF Association pdfa.org
http:pdfa.orghttp:pdf.editme.com
Thank You
Duff Johnson President, NetCentric & Vice Chair of the PDF Association
2012 - 03 - 23 A PDF Association Presentation - © 2012 by PDF Association - www.pdfa.org ISO 14289 - PDF/UA
http:www.pdfa.org
ISO 14289 - What Implementers Need to KnowAbout Duff JohnsonIn this PresentationIntroduction to Universally Accessible PDF - BackgroundThe History of PDF/UAThe Creators of PDF/UAThe Audience for PDF/UAThe Purpose of PDF/UABenefits for End UsersBenefits for OrganizationsThe Business CaseWhat About WCAG 2.0?
A Fast Introduction to Universally Accessible PDF - ISO 14289-1:2012Key TermsPDF Documents & FormsPDF ReadersAssistive TechnologySimple Page Example
How developers should thinkabout PDF accessibilityWritersReadersWhat’s Really ImportantExplaining it to the UserTop 10, in order of priority
Beyond PDF/UA-1Future DevelopmentCan You Join TC 171 SC 2?Yes! I want to help!