Ithaca College

Taking a proactive approach to document accessibility can save you time, money, and frustration! In this session, we’ll explore document accessibility from the author's or creator's perspective. We'll explore best practices, “things to consider,” what to do, and what not to do. 

SAS invites interested faculty and staff to a virtual session of the Accessing High Ground conference to help support authors and creators to proactively create accessible documents.  

The session will be held in Ithaca Falls Room on the 2nd floor of Campus Center on Wednesday November 20th from 4:15 to 5:15.

Please email sas@ithaca.edu if you would like to join.

Abstract

Creating accessible documents can be a confusing topic and a daunting task. Of course, it’s always easier and more cost-effective, in regard to time, money, and frustration, if you plan ahead and design with accessibility in mind as opposed to having to remediate PDFs after they’ve been created. In this workshop, we’ll explore document accessibility at the creation phase – best practices, what to do, and what not to do, so that your PDFs are more likely to be accessible from the start. While not focused on specific authoring tools or functionality, we’ll explore the concepts, content, presentation, and standards that go into making accessible documents. We'll discuss things like color, contrast, images, tables, lists, formatting, and, of course, the various accessibility standards including WCAG 2.0, 2.1, and PDF/UA. We'll also mention some helpful tools that document creators can use as well as testing tools to make sure that you didn't miss anything!

Keypoints

1. How to create documents with accessibility in mind.
2. How WCAG 2.1, PDF/UA, and other standards influence document accessibility.
3. How to test documents to make sure that they really are accessible.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Ian Moore at sas@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-1005. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.