[accessibility] Seeking Help for Producing Accessible PDF

[Jonathan Fine]

Hi Sanchit

Thank you for your request for help. I hope it will be provided. You've
certainly come to a good place, as experts in PDF accessibility via LaTeX
contribute to this list.

You helpfully told us that your university requires PDF for your term paper
submissions. Do they require that the submission also be accessible to
blind persons (such as yourself)?

I very much appreciate the irony and embarrassment involved in submitting a
term paper that you the author cannot read because it is inaccessible.
However, if from this list a solution does not soon emerge it might be best
to submit what you have so far. It would not be fair to apply to your PDF a
higher standard than is applied to sighted students.

The problem of "fi" and "fl" being skipped might be the easiest one to
solve. They arise because they are ligatures that have been handled only
visually. Ligatures help the sighted reader, and hinder the screen reader.

Aside: Ligatures first arise in writing. They are a way of joining up
(tying together) adjacent characters. With "fi" the hood of the "f"
collides with the dot on the top of the "i". To avoid this a special
character, the "fi" ligature, is used instead. In TeX ligatures are a
property of the font being used.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

Disclaimer: I've met Sanchit several times at the Accessibility TeX Hour,
and have learnt much from him, particularly regarding the adjustments and
difficulties related to being a blind student in STEM. We've also had
off-list personal communications.

To conclude, I'm grateful to you Sanchit for sharing these problems with
us, and I hope they don't obstruct the submission of your term paper. I
think responsibility for solving these problems lies with the experts on
this list, at least to the stage where there's a proof of concept solution.
>From there it might be possible for a lesser mortal to work with you to
make your term paper accessible to blind readers (such as yourself).

Finally, I'll start a new thread for the problem of ligatures. Please
Sanchit don't concern yourself with that thread, unless you have a special
interest or want a distraction from your studies.

with best regards

Jonathan

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