Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Common problems with screen readers and books in PDF (self.Blind)
submitted by atrey1
Hello. I work doing books and editorial stuff for a government branch in my country. I beginning to explore the steps to make books more accesible for visually impaired people. We often publish books with thesis, academic writings and stuff like that. Sometimes we also make a report with photos, tabs and different graphics about the things we do in the institution.
I tried to run one of our books in NVDA, I detected some problems that we could solve to make a version ideal for screen readers:
1. The order of the elements in the book. I suppose that the title and the index should go first, then the body of the text and, after all that, the legal page with the data about copyright.
2. The use of abreviatures. NVDSA reads them as separate characters. I suppose is easier to understand if we put the whole word instead of the abreviature.
3. Titles and subtitles. Should we put a tag before everyone of them to clarify that a text is a title or a subtitle.
4. Division of words using hyphens. In my test I found that, when there is a word broken in two lines, NVDA reads them as two separate words.
5. Also, the whole problem with tabs and graphics. We should translate them to a text form.
Are there more problems that you often find when reading books in PDF? My goal is publishing a version of each book that a screen reader can read easily.
Thanks. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I´m not a native speaker.
I tried to run one of our books in NVDA, I detected some problems that we could solve to make a version ideal for screen readers:
1. The order of the elements in the book. I suppose that the title and the index should go first, then the body of the text and, after all that, the legal page with the data about copyright.
2. The use of abreviatures. NVDSA reads them as separate characters. I suppose is easier to understand if we put the whole word instead of the abreviature.
3. Titles and subtitles. Should we put a tag before everyone of them to clarify that a text is a title or a subtitle.
4. Division of words using hyphens. In my test I found that, when there is a word broken in two lines, NVDA reads them as two separate words.
5. Also, the whole problem with tabs and graphics. We should translate them to a text form.
Are there more problems that you often find when reading books in PDF? My goal is publishing a version of each book that a screen reader can read easily.
Thanks. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I´m not a native speaker.
bondolo 2 points 3y ago
One of the biggest factors is how the PDF file is produced. A PDF produced from a printed document using a copier-scanner is, for example, totally unreadable except by using OCR in the PDF reader which produces a terrible result. The next worst solution is to "Print to PDF" using either Acrobat Pro or the PDF printer in MacOS or Windows. "Print to PDF" should only be used for applications which do not provide built-in export to PDF features. A PDF produced using "Print to PDF" will require remediation (ie. fixups) using Acrobat Pro or other tools.
The best solution is always to produce PDFs using the application's built-in export to PDF feature. Some care must also be taken to sure that the exported PDF contains the appropriate document structure, links, etc. as there are not always enabled by default. This should also fix the issues you mention with acronyms and hyphenation.
If you don't have control over how the PDF files are produced then you will probably have a lot of work to fix them unfortunately. Ultimately this work makes the PDF more useful for everyone. The hyphenation and acronym problems you mention, for example, are also a problem for non-disabled users because they break text search, i.e. the hyphenated word won't appear in search results and the acronym may be unsearchable.
You may also want to post this question to /r/webaccess as that community specifically for people producing accessible web content. (fair disclosure: I am a moderator of /r/webaccess)
The best solution is always to produce PDFs using the application's built-in export to PDF feature. Some care must also be taken to sure that the exported PDF contains the appropriate document structure, links, etc. as there are not always enabled by default. This should also fix the issues you mention with acronyms and hyphenation.
If you don't have control over how the PDF files are produced then you will probably have a lot of work to fix them unfortunately. Ultimately this work makes the PDF more useful for everyone. The hyphenation and acronym problems you mention, for example, are also a problem for non-disabled users because they break text search, i.e. the hyphenated word won't appear in search results and the acronym may be unsearchable.
You may also want to post this question to /r/webaccess as that community specifically for people producing accessible web content. (fair disclosure: I am a moderator of /r/webaccess)
CloudyBeep 1 points 3y ago
Problems 1 and 2 aren't really problems, and you shouldn't change the text of the book to deal with them.
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