Talk:PDF/UA

Untitled
I think the "multiple issues" warning should be removed from this page. How can this warning, added in May, 2013, to a much older version of the page, be removed? Duff Johnson (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Reader/Viewer/AT Support
Whatever the merits of the format itself, there is a significant practical problem with PDF/UA - it currently has very limited support from the vendors of PDF 'viewers', readers and such. Outside of MS Windows, support for PDF/UA in readers and viewers is pretty much non-existent. Have you ever got Apple's VoiceOver to browse a PDF/UA properly? Have you ever got an Android device to do so? Pick any other OS. Pick any PDF viewer. Does it support PDF/UA? The answer today, in most cases, is no.

A related problem: Most web browsers do a reasonable job of showing PDF content, but none of them (at time of writing) expose the PDF/UA semantic tags to assistive technology such as screen readers. This raises completely unreasonable expectations about how 'accessible' PDF/UA files actually are. Now, the PDF/UA apologists will tell you that the format is not intended for viewing in the browser, but can we really expect the end user (or the average project manager) to grasp that even though the browser can display PDF, it wont be accessible? I've even had PDF/UA files rejected by an accessibility audit because JAWS couldn't 'see' the tags in Chrome. The auditors were accessibility professionals, supposedly experts in the field. I can only assume that we could all benefit from being a bit more open about these practical shortcomings of PDF/UA, rather than pretending it's all rainbows and unicorns.

For a nominally 'portable' and 'accessible' format, PDF/UA makes an utterly dismal performance in both areas. Yes, I know it's neither the fault of ISO, or Adobe, but these are serious real world shortcomings, poorly documented, or unmentioned. I will be much happier than most when the situation improves, but perhaps these important shortcomings could be mentioned here, at least until the situation improves. How else would people be made aware of the problem? It came as a surprise to our a11y auditors! Certainly none of the vendors seem at all interested in making these facts more widely known in their docs. Perhaps wikipedia is an appropriate place for a gentle caveat of this nature? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.116.193.36 (talk) 13:58, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

WCAG 2.0
I haven't ever edited a wikipedia page before, but the mention of WCAG 2.0 on this article is out of date. If it was changed to WCAG without mentioning the version, the sentences that mention WCAG would stay current. 173.56.23.186 (talk) 16:15, 10 August 2023 (UTC)