[scribus] New for 1.6.0 - Tagged PDF to improve accessibility of PDFs?

["Christoph Schäfer"]

>
> Hello Christoph,
> 
> 1st: sorry for the double post. The first mail was send with the wrong mail address. This one was approved by a list administrator later, which led to a double post.
> 
> On 14.09.2013, at 08:03, Christoph Schäfer <christoph-schaefer at gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> > Tagged PDF is definitely on the radar, but unless someone with the appropriate skills to implement it steps up it won't become part of 1.5/1.6. It's simply too much work, and we need to implement a lot of other text features first.
> 
> I can understand that. Scribus is a gigantic project with really respectable results. I am using it myself since many years for a non-profit associations. I love it.
> 
> > As to your assertion that "the program cannot be used to generate documents for public organisations", I have to object.
> 
> We are working with a lot of public organisations here in Luxembourg and beyond. I can assure you, that in a not too far future tagged PDFs will be a requirement in all public tenders, which are asking not only for print but also for the delivery of the created documents to be published via the Internet. The UN convention forces them to ask this and they are aware of it. This is not for today, this is not for tomorrow, but this will be a requirement in one or two years. This is the reason why I would like to see this on the Roadmap now, so we might have this available in two years.
> 
> > Tagged PDF makes sense for continuous text, but for documents of that type you would rather use a word processor or a typesetting software. As soon as visually complex documents enter the picture, it's almost impossible to get it right.
> 
> Adobe InDesign has a good approach to this. As an inspiration you might like to have a look at these videos:
> 
> Preparing Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CS5.5: Part I
> http://tv.adobe.com/watch/accessibility-adobe/part-1-new-accessibility-features-in-indesign-cs55/
> 
> Preparing Accessible PDFs with Adobe InDesign CS5.5: Part II
> http://tv.adobe.com/watch/accessibility-adobe/part-2-exporting-and-finalizing-your-pdf/
> 
> > So, until a UN Convention requires print products, from posters to magazines, and presentations to be published in Braille, I don't think there's a reason to lose any sleep about the lack of Tagged PDF support right now.
> 
> Every digital accessible document can be easily displayed on a braille device attached to a computer. If the visual disabled person cannot read braille, there are other option like a screen reader on a PC, phone, or tablet. But all this requires an accessible document. Braille printing on paper was yesterday. The world has turned digital and disabled people are embracing it.
> 
> > Out of curiosity: Does a UN (or European) convention require software products to simulate colour blindness?
> 
> The UN Convention at its current status defines rules for governments and their institutions. The Convention does not define requirements for the software they are using. They just define, that all resulting documents created for mass publication need to be accessible. Accessibility includes a sufficient colour contrast.
> 
> The UN Convention does not force private companies or organisations to follow all of these guidelines. If the governments do not respects these policies, how can this be requested from someone else. The UN Convention just asks the governments to sensitise private companies and organisations. May be in 10 years when accessibility is taken for granted in all public organisations, then the policy will be extended to everybody else. But this is still along way to go.
> 
> > There are many more people out there who are suffering from colour blindness than those whose visual disability requires Tagged PDF.
> 
> So it is o.k. for you to drop visual disabled people, right? Accessibility means "Design for all" and not "Design for most". I know you mean it well. You just try to get most out of your very limited resources.
> 
> If you ever observed what a difference it makes for a visual disabled person to read a PDF with and without tagging, you would see things different.
> 
> Best regards
> 

Hi Matthias,

Let me answer with a single continuous text.

Two years in advance isn't our time frame for 1.6. It may become part of a new roadmap, the one for 1.7/1.8, which we'll begin to write and adjust after the relase of 1.6.0.

As to requirements for people with visual disabilities, it's a question of priorites. Currently there are many more people (more than a billion) without any such disabilities and who use a script that is not supported Scribus yet, e.g. the East Asian, Indic and Arabic families. 

Regarding our European scripts we need to implement professional features like full OpenType support (automatic ligatures etc.) and later make sure that in a Tagged PDF the ligatures will be stored as two or three separate letters, and much more. This is a huge task.

You wrote that Braille in print is dead. Not so! There are still schoolbooks being printed for blind people, and this won't stop anytime soon, because being able to read Braille will remain a subject tought in schools for blinds. After all, no one can expect to always have a functioning electronic gadget handy, if only because a thunderstorm caused a power blackout.

Let me also repeat that, as of now, Scribus's PDF output isn't primarily intended to create PDFs that will be published as electronic documents (the exception being PDF forms, and, in 1.5/1.6, 3D PDFS). Instead, Scribus creates "print-ready" PDFs, which serve as some kind of intermediate between the designer and the printer. The final "format" is the printed product. I know that it's not unusual to make low-resolution versions of printed articles available for download, and we need to work on that front, too (e.g., making text extraction easier), but that's still not the same as Tagged PDF. Presentation slides are also a largely visual medium, so for those we don't need Tagged PDF either.

As for procurement requirements demanding that software support Tagged PDF, please consider the following: There's a whole industry that changes its name every few years, and is currently, I think, called "diversity managment". You can even study this kind of stuff and, like lawyers, these people need jobs, which they usually find in public administrations and large corporations. To justify their existence, they need to always come up with new ideas, and procurement rules are just one example of how they prove their irreplaceability. I know that this sounds cynical, but it's true, and it's just one example of bureaucracies keeping themselves and others busy. 

More importantly, we (i.e., those of us being lucky enough to live in the Western hemisphere, culturally and economically speaking) tend to see the world through our very narrow prism. We forget that large proportions of humanity are still starving or dying from thirst, on the run from civil wars or plagues etc. Those lucky enough to have access to computers and the internet in developing and threshold countries should be able to use software that supports their local scripts, so we should focus on supporting as many scripts as possible first and solve our Western luxury problems later, and accessibility of digital documents for blind people is a luxury problem. Moreover, even for wealthy and stable states/societies like South Korea or Japan support for Tagged PDF doesn't make much sense as long as we cannot handle their scripts properly.

The previous rant had nothing to do with "drop[ping] visual[ly] disabled people", but rather with setting priorities realistically. I also take exception with your statement "Accessibility means 'Design for all' and not 'Design for most'." Design is, by definition, something visual, at least if by design we mean graphics or page design. As such it really is design for the majority of those who can see. I know I'm nitpicking, but accessibility has nothing to do with design. 

I'm all for improving accessibility and enabling export to Tagged PDF in future versions of Scribus, because it'd be a good and useful feature that could help many of our fellow human beings who are suffering from blindness. But before that can be done, we need to implement many other features which are useful to even larger groups of humans who are currently disadvantaged due to our myopic Western view.


Kind regards,


Christoph