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This is part 1 of an email discussion from several weeks back.
<div>All involved agreed to have it posted to this list.<br>
<div><br>
<div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Boris Veytsman <<a href="mailto:borisv@lk.net">borisv@lk.net</a>><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">31 October 2016 5:02:58 AM AEDT<br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Ross Moore <<a href="mailto:ross.moore@mq.edu.au">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</a>><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Cc:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>>, <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>>, <<a href="mailto:karl@freefriends.org">karl@freefriends.org</a>><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: Making PDFs produced from Latex accessible</b><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<div>Hi, Ross<br>
<br>
Thanks for your very interesting letter. I am glad to hear you are<br>
working on this. Let me know if you need any help in testing,<br>
development or funding.<br>
<br>
I would like to discuss another use case, which is relevant to my<br>
work. Consider a LaTeX class author. Suppose she wants to make a<br>
class that produces accessible PDFs. As a document class author, she<br>
has much better control than the document author: for example, she can<br>
put any tag code in the headers and footers, can plug into output<br>
routine, can expressly forbid loading packages incompatible with the<br>
accessibility code, etc. Thus an accessibility package with the<br>
interface for class authors might be simpler to make than an<br>
accessibility package with the interface for document authors.<br>
<br>
I would suggest releasing such package first, so document class<br>
authors could use and test the code. What do you think?<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Good luck<br>
<br>
-Boris<br>
<br>
Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">30 October 2016 3:08:40 PM AEDT<br>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Cc:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>>, Boris Veytsman <<a href="mailto:borisv@lk.net">borisv@lk.net</a>>, "Karl Berry" <<a href="mailto:karl@freefriends.org">karl@freefriends.org</a>><br>
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: Making PDFs produced from Latex accessible</b><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">
Hi Volker, Jeff, Boris, Karl
<div><br>
<div>
<div>On 28/10/2016, at 6:40 AM, Volker Sorge wrote:</div>
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<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Hi Ross,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for getting back to us. I agree with most of your points. In particular, it will be difficult to get authors to voluntarily do extra work to be able to generate accessible or even semantically rich PDF documents in all cases. But this is not what
we want to do anyway.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm adding in Boris and Karl to this conversation.</div>
<div>Both should be interested in what you have to say,</div>
<div>and to the way I'm responding to it.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Instead we want to concentrate on the most important use case, which I would crudely define as follows:<br>
</div>
<div>Author X has to submit an accessible paper to conference Y. </div>
<div>- X writes paper in LaTeX </div>
<div>- generates a PDF file for the CRC.</div>
<div>- moves PDF to Adobe Acrobat X Pro (possibly change platform, e.g. from Linux to Mac/Windows, have to buy Acrobat or use the limited trial version). </div>
<div>- run accessibility audit and manually take care of all the problems such as reading order, header nesting, alt text tags etc. </div>
<div>- save paper and sends it to publisher for Y.</div>
<div>- AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Never touch the PDF again!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There are two major problems with this workflow:</div>
<div>1) If X wants to correct a mistake in the paper they have to go through the entire process again, which is very time consuming.</div>
<div>2) If there is a problem with paper publisher of Y will not touch/rerun the LaTeX, while they can generate a basic accessible PDF from a word doc directly. This might eventually force Y to only allow Word submissions.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Yes, OK. </div>
<div>This should spur an urgency within the TeX world, to fully implement</div>
<div>tagged PDF. But it has not done so.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I claim author X faced with this extra work will certainly be prepared to include a bespoke accessibility package and put enough additional information into the paper to ease the above workflow.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So having a package that would already take care of the most common accessibility issues in PDF (and is at least as good as what MS word can produce) would be very helpful. Some issues I would identify off the top of my head are:</div>
<div>- Automatically generate the correct reading order (at least for sections/sub-sections etc.)</div>
<div>- Generate the correct nesting of headers</div>
<div>- Fill in the title, author information.</div>
<div>- Allow to manually create some reading order exceptions (e.g. for thank you or copyright notes)</div>
<div>- Allow to specify alt-text for graphics, formulas, etc.</div>
<div>- [Optional] Provide a way to automatically fill in Alt Text for maths formulas adhering to Maths accessibility conventions.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This all sounds simple enough, in principle only.</div>
<div>In practice it is not that easy.</div>
<div>I'll attempt to explain why.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My 2009 paper was meant to indicate the extra technical difficulty</div>
<div>and what extra information needs to be included within a tagged PDF</div>
<div>document, over and above what is present in the paged view</div>
<div>that TeX software currently produces.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Now for a document to be assessed, in some automatic way, as being </div>
<div>accessible, it will need to pass validation tests.</div>
<div>These tests might be done using Acrobat Pro, or other software</div>
<div>validation tools; e.g. as produced by Callas software</div>
<div> <a href="https://www.callassoftware.com/en">https://www.callassoftware.com/en</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This will require proper adherence to the published PDF/UA standard,</div>
<div>and correct implementation of the PDF tagging structures.</div>
<div>(Essentially this means adherence the forth-coming PDF 2.0.)</div>
<div> </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Here I'll discuss just some of these requirements.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Requirement #1:</div>
<div> *all* content on the page must be tagged, whether included</div>
<div> via the structure tree or not.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The "or not" here refers to "Artifacts", such as headers, footers,</div>
<div>page numbering, background images and other decorative features</div>
<div>that may be on the page. </div>
<div>Things like horizontal rules don't count, since this does not use</div>
<div>characters from fonts; so fraction bars normally don't count.</div>
<div>Arrows and arrowheads *can* count as content, if placed using</div>
<div>font characters, as with Xy-pic --- another of my projects.</div>
<div>Multiple Dingbats, used to create decorative borders using font</div>
<div>characters, must also be tagged as "Artifact".</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The upshot of this is that every package that is used to include</div>
<div>specialised content, must be checked for compatibility with tagging.</div>
<div>It may be that the package simply provides an easy front-end to</div>
<div>internal LaTeX commands, in which case the tagging can be done</div>
<div>by patching the LaTeX commands. Or it may be that the package</div>
<div>calls TeX primitives directly, in which case it is the package</div>
<div>that should also handle the tagging.</div>
<div>Sometimes it may be OK to patch at the level of the TeX primitives;</div>
<div>but this could be problematic. There are different types of Artifact,</div>
<div>and the semantic information needed to determine this may no longer</div>
<div>be available at the level of the particular primitives.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As an example, consider how (La)TeX identifies a paragraph,</div>
<div>for applying the line-breaking algorithm.</div>
<div>Usually just a blank line at the end of text calls up \par .</div>
<div>The start can be triggered simply by encountering text characters,</div>
<div>which internally trigger a macro called \everypar .</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>These macros \par and \everypar now need to be *overloaded* to handle</div>
<div>tagging, both of structure and content. This is as well as whatever</div>
<div>they would normally do within LaTeX, or within the specialised content</div>
<div>of particular environments defined by packages.</div>
<div>Thus our *package* for tagging must identify all the situations in which</div>
<div>\par and \everypar are used, and make appropriate adjustments.</div>
<div>A quick grep search through the tex-live ../texmf/tex/latex/ tree</div>
<div>reveals 553 instances of \everypar usage within package .sty files,</div>
<div>and the like. Only 18 of these are within the base LaTeX .ltx files.</div>
<div>And of course a user might specify \everypar{} at any stage within</div>
<div>a LaTeX document. Normally this would be quite innocuous; but if \everypar</div>
<div>has been overloaded to handle tagging, then this will be destroyed,</div>
<div>at least within a level of grouping by {...} or within an environment.</div>
<div>Yes, this is likely to be rare; but certainly possible — and it is precisely</div>
<div>what is done within many package-defined macros.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Another special case occurs when detailed MathML tagging is used</div>
<div>for math content, with the use of parentheses and other delimiters.</div>
<div>Depending on just how the MathML stream handles the structure,</div>
<div>the characters to display the delimiters could be viewed as content,</div>
<div>e.g. </div>
<div> <mrow><mo>(</mo><mi>a</mi><mo>+</mo><mi>b</mi><mo>)</mo></mrow></div>
<div>or as artifacts</div>
<div>e.g. <mfenced><mi>a</mi><mo>+</mo><mi>b</mi></mfenced></div>
<div>Spacing within mathematical content also has big issues.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This kind of detailed level of mathematics tagging is pretty rare.</div>
<div>So far it may be only myself who can actually do this, inside a PDF.</div>
<div>But it is exactly what Neil Soiffer asked me to do, so that there</div>
<div>is a way to provide fully tagged mathematics for his MathPlayer</div>
<div>Acrobat plug-in. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div> <a href="https://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/">https://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div>This is ideally the way mathematical content be presented within PDF files.</div>
<div>But think of the consequences of having such tagging.</div>
<div>The variables 'a' and 'b' should be mapped to upper-plane Unicode</div>
<div>characters 𝑎 and 𝑏 and any greek letters or operator symbols in TeX fonts</div>
<div>or AMS fonts mapped similarly into the proper Unicode code-points.</div>
<div>/ToUnicode maps can do this. But for accessibility, you want more;</div>
<div>since these symbols need to be read aloud in a sensible way.</div>
<div>e.g. you don't want "mathematical small italic b" to be vocalised;</div>
<div>"variable named b" or "variable b" are preferable, or even just "b".</div>
<div>Think further about calligraphic, script or fraktur characters.</div>
<div>Then the best is to vocalise what the character is being used for,</div>
<div>rather than what it is. </div>
<div>(This could apply also to user-defined variable names.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Requirement #2:</div>
<div> word boundaries must be identifiable to PDF readers/renderers.</div>
<div>Usually this means that space characters should appear in the textual</div>
<div>content of the PDF. TeX normally does not do this!!! </div>
<div>We've all seen how copy-paste from a LaTeX-produced PDF can capture</div>
<div>all the letters, but abutted together, without the inter-word spaces. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I say "normally" here, because there is now a "fake-space" option that </div>
<div>does allow the input to contain invisible zero-width space characters.</div>
<div>Now Copy/Paste works much better; but "Reflow" does not.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Reflow is about having the textual content reflow to fit the window size,</div>
<div>as the content is scaled up for better readability; e.g. by a person</div>
<div>with some (but not total) visual impairment.</div>
<div>Although not actually part of PDF/UA, the concept of Reflow is clearly</div>
<div>meant as an aide to Accessibility. So it's a desirable feature for a PDF.</div>
<div>And it is listed here:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/accessibility/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat-x-pdf-accessibility-overview.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/accessibility/products/acrobat/pdfs/acrobat-x-pdf-accessibility-overview.pdf</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If TeX-produced documents are ever going to allow Reflow, then there are</div>
<div>fundamental changes needed to the way the text-strings are written into</div>
<div>the PDF file. Not doing this is a real game-breaker for TeX.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Requirement #3:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Each page needs to be able to "stand-alone" as a tagged PDF document.</div>
<div>Think about extracting a page from a document, and possibly copying, </div>
<div>along with other single pages, into another tagged document.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This creates a big problem for tagging a (La)TeX-produced document,</div>
<div>if all the tagging was to be done entirely by macro-expansion, </div>
<div>using commands from a package. </div>
<div>Where does a page end? Usually somewhere in the middle of a paragraph.</div>
<div>But this isn't determined until the output routine, after all macro-expansion</div>
<div>has occurred, and the vertical list is being examined to determine suitable</div>
<div>break-points. </div>
<div>Not only do we need end-points for the tagging of content on the page</div>
<div>being output, but also we need to start the tagging, of both structure</div>
<div>and content, of the subsequent page in a way that is consistent with</div>
<div>the structure tagging of the document overall.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This handling of tagging at page-boundaries is best done internally</div>
<div>by TeX, rather than at the level of macros from a package.</div>
<div>It is possible for something like ConTeXt, and perhaps also by LuaTeX,</div>
<div>using Lua scripting to adjust the PDF output.</div>
<div>For pdfTeX or dvips, it is currently not possible — without extra</div>
<div>internal programming structures, induced by extra primitive commands.</div>
<div>My 2009 paper, and subsequent examples, used a version of pdfTeX</div>
<div>extended with such primitives. </div>
<div>I intend creating more examples using this extension of pdfTeX.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The problem is that one has to use these extra primitives in exactly</div>
<div>the correct way, else one can easily create broken PDFs, without</div>
<div>any feedback from the TeX processor to warn of the broken document.</div>
<div>Indeed, if the TeX previewer is one that is unaware of tagging</div>
<div>(e.g., Apple's Preview) then you may not have any inkling that there</div>
<div>is a problem, until viewing with Adobe's Reader or Acrobat Pro.</div>
<div>Then the error can be due to malformed PDF, which may cause the</div>
<div>software to refuse to open the file, or even crash completely.</div>
<div>Or it can be a problem in the structure tree.</div>
<div>In either case there is no easy way for anyone except the document </div>
<div>author to determine what might be going wrong, or what was really</div>
<div>intended. And even then, the author is unlikely to be aware of</div>
<div>what they did wrong.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This is the main reason why I still do not release the work that I've </div>
<div>done so far on tagging, to be used (or rather abused) by others. </div>
<div>It is far too easy to make mistakes, for reasons that only an experienced </div>
<div>TeX guru would understand. Most users expect more, and cannot cope when they </div>
<div>don't get what they think they asked for --- when in reality they did not. </div>
<div>This would just lead to a greater flow of users away from TeX and LaTeX; </div>
<div>which is precisely the opposite of what we want. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Visit the page;</div>
<div> <a href="http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/~maths/CICM/">http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/~maths/CICM/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Download my paper:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/~maths/CICM/mooreDML2014-postprint.pdf">http://rutherglen.science.mq.edu.au/~maths/CICM/mooreDML2014-postprint.pdf</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Look at the attachments to this PDF.</div>
<div>You should find both a fully-tagged PDF titled:</div>
<div> 2013-Assign2-soln-3u.pdf (or similar)</div>
<div>and the .tex source used to generate it,</div>
<div>using the specially extended pdTeX .</div>
<div>Examine that source, to locate bits that are not standard LaTeX.</div>
<div>You should not be able to find much, since I've done a pretty good</div>
<div>job of adjusting macro-expansions within an include'd file.</div>
<div>(named tagstart.tex or similar)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>This is an example of what you want; essentially including a package</div>
<div>to obtain good tagging. But remember that the processing engine has</div>
<div>been modified, and there is a TeX guru behind it all, taking care of </div>
<div>detailed aspects of the processing, then hiding it away in re-definitions</div>
<div>(and over-loadings) of LaTeX internal commands.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Proof of concept? — maybe.</div>
<div>Ready-to-use package? — certainly not.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I feel that a package of this nature should be do-able. I am not certain how much interaction with other packages would be necessary, but if necessary in a first iteration, we could restrict it to work with certain packages only (e.g., AMS math).</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've tried to explain above, why this is not as practical as it sounds.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Asking users to restrict the packages they use can really only result</div>
<div>in frustration, as people then try to recreate the effects that they </div>
<div>know they can get easily using some other package.</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We should schedule a Skype call or Google hangout on this in the not too distant future.</div>
<div>Jeff is on the East Coast, I am still in the Bay Area until 21 Nov, which might make it easier to schedule a call. After that I'll be back in the UK.<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Sure.</div>
<div>Time-zones make it hard to find a good time, suitable to everyone.</div>
<div>But that should not stop us trying. :-)</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Volker</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 26 October 2016 at 16:10, Ross Moore <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:ross.moore@mq.edu.au" target="_blank">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex; position: static; z-index: auto; ">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Hi Volker, Jeff
<div><span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite">On 27 Oct 2016, at 03:10, Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com" target="_blank">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
Thanks, Jeff, for bringing me in to this conversation.<br>
<br>
Hi Ross, you might recall we had a chat about this a couple of years<br>
back in Washington. I agree with Jeff, that if we can't produce<br>
accessible PDFs from LaTeX directly, it will only be a matter of time<br>
before publishers force authors to move away from LaTeX. But I can<br>
think of a number of organisations that this won't happen and<br>
therefore would be interested in a bespoke LaTeX package for<br>
accessibility (e.g., AMS, APS).<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>The problem is that it will require more than just a package.</div>
<div>Even with a good package and a revised LaTeX format, authors will</div>
<div>need to adjust there coding habits to be aware of the extra information</div>
<div>required to construct good, consistent tagging structures and many</div>
<div>commonly-used packages will need to be updated to be aware of tagging,</div>
<div>and what is required for proper tagging of structures like mathematical</div>
<div>content, tables and figures.</div>
<span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite">Ross, if you are interested in this, maybe we could have a face to<br>
face one of these days.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>I’m certainly interested.</div>
<div>I’ve been very busy with teaching commitments the past few years.</div>
<div>Hopefully soon I’ll get more time to devote to implementing</div>
<div>structures that are useful for Accessibility, and produce more</div>
<div>example documents. We have a new Head of Department, who is</div>
<div>aware of the need to support Accessibility, so I’m expecting to get</div>
<div>a bit more actual support at my university than I’ve had previously.</div>
<span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Best,<br>
Volker<br>
<br>
On 26 October 2016 at 06:12, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu" target="_blank">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Ross,<br>
<br>
As luck would have it, I'm attending a conference with Volker Sorge (CC'd)<br>
who is also interested in this, so I'm adding him to the conversation.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Jeff<br>
<br>
On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu" target="_blank">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Hi Ross,<br>
<br>
I ran across your paper here:<br>
<a href="https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/<wbr>tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>That describes work that I presented back in 2009.</div>
<div>The best place to find more recent work is here:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.tug.org/twg/accessibility/" target="_blank">https://www.tug.org/twg/<wbr>accessibility/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Scroll down to the list of papers, with links, near the bottom.</div>
<span class="">
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
We've been trying to make the conference papers we produce in computer<br>
science accessible to people with disabilities. One of the challenges we<br>
have is that so many of the publications are produced as PDFs and many<br>
authors use Latex.<br>
<br>
Do you have any updates on the state-of-the-art on producing<br>
accessible/tagged PDFs directly from Latex? Do you know anyone who would<br>
have the experience to create a Latex package for tagging PDFs? I could<br>
contribute real resources to this project, but I would need to find someone<br>
with the necessary expertise.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>Yes, there are not many people with the proper expertise.</div>
<div>In the TeX User Group community, there are people such as:</div>
<div> Boris Veytsman and Bruno Le Floch</div>
<div>who have shown some interest in Accessibility.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Some of the CICM/MKM community are sort-of interested,</div>
<div>via semantic enrichment.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And every so often I get an email from a student somewhere,</div>
<div>wanting a quick and easy solution, to produce an accessible PDF</div>
<div>for their PhD thesis.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I’m in contact with the ISO/PDF working group that develops the PDF/UA</div>
<div>and other standards. This includes engineers from Adobe.</div>
<div>But these guys know of TeX/LaTeX, but don’t have expertise in programming</div>
<div>with it.</div>
<span class="">
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Thanks!<br>
Jeff<br>
<br>
--<br>
==<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
Language Technologies Institute<br>
Carnegie Mellon University<br>
<a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
==<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
Language Technologies Institute<br>
Carnegie Mellon University<br>
<a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>Hope this helps, at least a bit.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="m_8286977009769242941Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span>Ross</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>All the best,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"></span>Ross</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div apple-content-edited="true"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Monaco; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Monaco; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9px; "><b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; ">Dr Ross Moore</span></b></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">
<p style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-size: 7pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; "><font color="#000000"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; "><b>Mathematics Dept </b><b>|</b> Level 2, S2.6 AHH<br>
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; "></span></font></p>
<p style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-size: 7pt; line-height: 11.25pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; ">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; "><font color="#000000">T:</font></span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; "><font color="#000000"> +61 2 9850 <b>8955 | F:</b> </font><a href="tel:%2B61%202%209850%209695" value="+61298509695" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">+61
2 9850 8114</font></a><br>
<font color="#000000"><b>M:</b><a href="tel:%2B61%20409%20125%20670" value="+61409125670" target="_blank">+61 407 288 255</a><b> | </b>E: </font><a href="mailto:rick.minter@mq.edu.au" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</font><font color="#1155cc"><span style="color: black; "></span></font></a><font color="#1155cc"><span style="color: black; "></span></font><span style="color: black; "></span><span style="text-decoration: none; "><br>
</span></span></p>
<p style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-size: 7pt; line-height: 11.25pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; ">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; "><span style="color: black; "><span style="color: black; text-decoration: none; "><a title="Macquarie University" href="http://mq.edu.au/" target="_blank">http://www.maths.mq.edu.au</a></span></span></span></p>
<p><a href="http://mq.edu.au/" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<span><img height="58" width="260" id="0dfe3639-c836-421b-8118-c60f5dcac6e2" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:image001.png@01D030BE.D37A46F0"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: Monaco; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; "></span></span></a></p>
<p style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-size: 7pt; "><a href="http://mq.edu.au/" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 7pt; "><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
CRICOS Provider Number 00002J. Think before you print. <br>
Please consider the environment before printing this email.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; "></span></a></p>
<p style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-size: 7pt; "><a href="http://mq.edu.au/" target="_blank"><span style="color: rgb(119, 119, 119); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 7pt; ">This message is intended for the addressee named and may <br>
contain confidential information. If you are not the intended <br>
recipient, please delete it and notify the sender. Views expressed <br>
in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not <br>
necessarily the views of Macquarie University.</span></a></p>
</span></div>
</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">28 October 2016 6:40:21 AM AEDT<br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Ross Moore <<a href="mailto:ross.moore@mq.edu.au">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Cc:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: Making PDFs produced from Latex accessible</b><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Hi Ross,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for getting back to us. I agree with most of your points. In particular, it will be difficult to get authors to voluntarily do extra work to be able to generate accessible or even semantically rich PDF documents in all cases. But this is not what
we want to do anyway.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Instead we want to concentrate on the most important use case, which I would crudely define as follows:<br>
</div>
<div>Author X has to submit an accessible paper to conference Y. </div>
<div>- X writes paper in LaTeX </div>
<div>- generates a PDF file for the CRC.</div>
<div>- moves PDF to Adobe Acrobat X Pro (possibly change platform, e.g. from Linux to Mac/Windows, have to buy Acrobat or use the limited trial version). </div>
<div>- run accessibility audit and manually take care of all the problems such as reading order, header nesting, alt text tags etc. </div>
<div>- save paper and sends it to publisher for Y.</div>
<div>- AND MOST IMPORTANTLY: Never touch the PDF again!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>There are two major problems with this workflow:</div>
<div>1) If X wants to correct a mistake in the paper they have to go through the entire process again, which is very time consuming.</div>
<div>2) If there is a problem with paper publisher of Y will not touch/rerun the LaTeX, while they can generate a basic accessible PDF from a word doc directly. This might eventually force Y to only allow Word submissions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I claim author X faced with this extra work will certainly be prepared to include a bespoke accessibility package and put enough additional information into the paper to ease the above workflow.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So having a package that would already take care of the most common accessibility issues in PDF (and is at least as good as what MS word can produce) would be very helpful. Some issues I would identify off the top of my head are:</div>
<div>- Automatically generate the correct reading order (at least for sections/sub-sections etc.)</div>
<div>- Generate the correct nesting of headers</div>
<div>- Fill in the title, author information.</div>
<div>- Allow to manually create some reading order exceptions (e.g. for thank you or copyright notes)</div>
<div>- Allow to specify alt-text for graphics, formulas, etc.</div>
<div>- [Optional] Provide a way to automatically fill in Alt Text for maths formulas adhering to Maths accessibility conventions.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I feel that a package of this nature should be do-able. I am not certain how much interaction with other packages would be necessary, but if necessary in a first iteration, we could restrict it to work with certain packages only (e.g., AMS math).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We should schedule a Skype call or Google hangout on this in the not too distant future.</div>
<div>Jeff is on the East Coast, I am still in the Bay Area until 21 Nov, which might make it easier to schedule a call. After that I'll be back in the UK.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Volker</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 26 October 2016 at 16:10, Ross Moore <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:ross.moore@mq.edu.au" target="_blank">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Hi Volker, Jeff
<div><span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite">On 27 Oct 2016, at 03:10, Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com" target="_blank">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
Thanks, Jeff, for bringing me in to this conversation.<br>
<br>
Hi Ross, you might recall we had a chat about this a couple of years<br>
back in Washington. I agree with Jeff, that if we can't produce<br>
accessible PDFs from LaTeX directly, it will only be a matter of time<br>
before publishers force authors to move away from LaTeX. But I can<br>
think of a number of organisations that this won't happen and<br>
therefore would be interested in a bespoke LaTeX package for<br>
accessibility (e.g., AMS, APS).<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>The problem is that it will require more than just a package.</div>
<div>Even with a good package and a revised LaTeX format, authors will</div>
<div>need to adjust there coding habits to be aware of the extra information</div>
<div>required to construct good, consistent tagging structures and many</div>
<div>commonly-used packages will need to be updated to be aware of tagging,</div>
<div>and what is required for proper tagging of structures like mathematical</div>
<div>content, tables and figures.</div>
<span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite">Ross, if you are interested in this, maybe we could have a face to<br>
face one of these days.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>I’m certainly interested.</div>
<div>I’ve been very busy with teaching commitments the past few years.</div>
<div>Hopefully soon I’ll get more time to devote to implementing</div>
<div>structures that are useful for Accessibility, and produce more</div>
<div>example documents. We have a new Head of Department, who is</div>
<div>aware of the need to support Accessibility, so I’m expecting to get</div>
<div>a bit more actual support at my university than I’ve had previously.</div>
<span class=""><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Best,<br>
Volker<br>
<br>
On 26 October 2016 at 06:12, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu" target="_blank">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Ross,<br>
<br>
As luck would have it, I'm attending a conference with Volker Sorge (CC'd)<br>
who is also interested in this, so I'm adding him to the conversation.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Jeff<br>
<br>
On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu" target="_blank">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Hi Ross,<br>
<br>
I ran across your paper here:<br>
<a href="https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/<wbr>tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>That describes work that I presented back in 2009.</div>
<div>The best place to find more recent work is here:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.tug.org/twg/accessibility/" target="_blank">https://www.tug.org/twg/<wbr>accessibility/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Scroll down to the list of papers, with links, near the bottom.</div>
<span class="">
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
We've been trying to make the conference papers we produce in computer<br>
science accessible to people with disabilities. One of the challenges we<br>
have is that so many of the publications are produced as PDFs and many<br>
authors use Latex.<br>
<br>
Do you have any updates on the state-of-the-art on producing<br>
accessible/tagged PDFs directly from Latex? Do you know anyone who would<br>
have the experience to create a Latex package for tagging PDFs? I could<br>
contribute real resources to this project, but I would need to find someone<br>
with the necessary expertise.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>
<div>Yes, there are not many people with the proper expertise.</div>
<div>In the TeX User Group community, there are people such as:</div>
<div> Boris Veytsman and Bruno Le Floch</div>
<div>who have shown some interest in Accessibility.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Some of the CICM/MKM community are sort-of interested,</div>
<div>via semantic enrichment.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>And every so often I get an email from a student somewhere,</div>
<div>wanting a quick and easy solution, to produce an accessible PDF</div>
<div>for their PhD thesis.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I’m in contact with the ISO/PDF working group that develops the PDF/UA</div>
<div>and other standards. This includes engineers from Adobe.</div>
<div>But these guys know of TeX/LaTeX, but don’t have expertise in programming</div>
<div>with it.</div>
<span class="">
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
Thanks!<br>
Jeff<br>
<br>
--<br>
==<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
Language Technologies Institute<br>
Carnegie Mellon University<br>
<a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
==<br>
Associate Professor<br>
Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
Language Technologies Institute<br>
Carnegie Mellon University<br>
<a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</span>Hope this helps, at least a bit.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span class="m_8286977009769242941Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre-wrap"></span>Ross</div>
<div><br>
<div><br>
Dr Ross Moore<br>
Mathematics Dept | Level 2, S2.638 AHH<br>
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia<br>
<br>
T: <a href="tel:%2B61%202%209850%C2%A08955" value="+61298508955" target="_blank">+61 2 9850 8955</a> | F: <a href="tel:%2B61%202%209850%208114" value="+61298508114" target="_blank">+61 2 9850 8114</a><br>
M:<a href="tel:%2B61%20407%20288%20255" value="+61407288255" target="_blank">+61 407 288 255</a> | E: <a href="mailto:ross.moore@mq.edu.au" target="_blank">ross.moore@mq.edu.au</a><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/" target="_blank">http://www.maths.mq.edu.au</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<span><img height="58" width="260" id="m_828697700976924294128F8758E-C7FB-4EE3-A2AD-4AEE9840AA1C" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:image001.png@01D030BE.D37A46F0"></span><br>
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CRICOS Provider Number 00002J. Think before you print. <br>
Please consider the environment before printing this email.<br>
<br>
This message is intended for the addressee named and may <br>
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in this message are those of the individual sender, and are not <br>
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</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">27 October 2016 3:10:38 AM AEDT<br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Cc:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Ross Moore <<a href="mailto:ross@maths.mq.edu.au">ross@maths.mq.edu.au</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: Making PDFs produced from Latex accessible</b><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<div>Thanks, Jeff, for bringing me in to this conversation.<br>
<br>
Hi Ross, you might recall we had a chat about this a couple of years<br>
back in Washington. I agree with Jeff, that if we can't produce<br>
accessible PDFs from LaTeX directly, it will only be a matter of time<br>
before publishers force authors to move away from LaTeX. But I can<br>
think of a number of organisations that this won't happen and<br>
therefore would be interested in a bespoke LaTeX package for<br>
accessibility (e.g., AMS, APS).<br>
Ross, if you are interested in this, maybe we could have a face to<br>
face one of these days.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Volker<br>
<br>
On 26 October 2016 at 06:12, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Ross,<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">As luck would have it, I'm attending a conference with Volker Sorge (CC'd)<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">who is also interested in this, so I'm adding him to the conversation.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Thanks,<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Jeff<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Ross,<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">I ran across your paper here:<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><a href="https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf">https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">We've been trying to make the conference papers we produce in computer<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">science accessible to people with disabilities. One of the challenges we<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">have is that so many of the publications are produced as PDFs and many<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">authors use Latex.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Do you have any updates on the state-of-the-art on producing<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">accessible/tagged PDFs directly from Latex? Do you know anyone who would<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">have the experience to create a Latex package for tagging PDFs? I could<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">contribute real resources to this project, but I would need to find someone<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">with the necessary expertise.<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Thanks!<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Jeff<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">--<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">==<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Associate Professor<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Language Technologies Institute<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Carnegie Mellon University<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://jeffreybigham.com">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">--<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">==<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Associate Professor<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Human-Computer Interaction Institute<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Language Technologies Institute<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">Carnegie Mellon University<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://jeffreybigham.com">jeffreybigham.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Begin forwarded message:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>From:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Jeffrey Bigham <<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Date:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">27 October 2016 12:12:38 AM AEDT<br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>To:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Ross Moore <<a href="mailto:ross@maths.mq.edu.au">ross@maths.mq.edu.au</a>>, Volker Sorge <<a href="mailto:volker.sorge@gmail.com">volker.sorge@gmail.com</a>><br>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;">
<span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1);"><b>Subject:
</b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: Making PDFs produced from Latex accessible</b><br>
</span></div>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">Hi Ross,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As luck would have it, I'm attending a conference with Volker Sorge (CC'd) who is also interested in this, so I'm adding him to the conversation.<br>
<br>
Thanks,</div>
<div>Jeff</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 9:25 AM, Jeffrey Bigham <span dir="ltr">
<<a href="mailto:jbigham@cs.cmu.edu" target="_blank">jbigham@cs.cmu.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Hi Ross,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I ran across your paper here:<br>
<a href="https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.tug.org/TUGboat/<wbr>tb30-2/tb95moore.pdf</a><br>
<br>
We've been trying to make the conference papers we produce in computer science accessible to people with disabilities. One of the challenges we have is that so many of the publications are produced as PDFs and many authors use Latex.<br>
<br>
Do you have any updates on the state-of-the-art on producing accessible/tagged PDFs directly from Latex? Do you know anyone who would have the experience to create a Latex package for tagging PDFs? I could contribute real resources to this project, but I
would need to find someone with the necessary expertise.<br clear="all">
<div><br>
Thanks!</div>
<div>Jeff<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
</font></span></div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">-- <br>
<div class="m_-495210178128669207gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">==
<div>Associate Professor</div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Human-Computer Interaction Institute</span><br>
</div>
<div>Language Technologies Institute</div>
<div>Carnegie Mellon University</div>
<div><a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</font></span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">==
<div>Associate Professor</div>
<div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Human-Computer Interaction Institute</span><br>
</div>
<div>Language Technologies Institute</div>
<div>Carnegie Mellon University</div>
<div><a href="http://jeffreybigham.com/" target="_blank">jeffreybigham.com</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
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