Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro (CHAX) as they chat about important document accessibility topics, trends and maybe even complain a little now and again.
Forms are one of the trickiest types of PDF's to make accessible! In this episode, Chad and Dax break down why forms can be so frustrating, how tagging impacts screen reader navigation, and what tools and workflows can help you build forms that are both functional and accessible. They share tips that save time (and sanity), pitfalls to avoid, and, as always, they remind you why checking your work with a screen reader is essential. Interested in a resource mentioned in this episode? Send us an email at solutions@chaxtc.com and we'll get it right to you!
In this episode of Chax Chat, hosts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro tackle real-world challenges in document accessibility, focusing on tools like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Adobe Acrobat. They explore common issues with tables and cells, such as merged headers and layout complexities, and share practical tips for ensuring accessibility across different formats. The conversation includes strategies for managing accessibility in spreadsheets and PDFs, highlighting the nuances of remediation. Plus we are introduced to Chad's cat, more Koi talk, and how to snag a Chax freebie.
In this episode of ChaxChat, hosts Chad Chelius and Dax Castro delve into document accessibility with a focus on real-world challenges and professional development. This episode highlights tools and strategies that bridge the gap between aesthetics and functionality. Working in MS Word, Powerpoint and Adobe Acrobat. Using the Microsoft accessibility checker. Qualitative VS quantitative. And of course Koi Talk.
What really drives accessibility—compliance, inclusion, or brand trust? Chad and Dax unpack an IAAP white paper on motivations, share how automation needs a human touch, and highlight why certifications like IAAP's ADS matter. They also dive into creating truly accessible documents with a focus on meeting PDF/UA standards. Perfect for anyone ready to level up their accessibility game.
In this episode of Chax Chat, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro take a hard look at the hidden risks of relying on templates for accessible content. They unpack how even well-intentioned templates can bake in bad practices and create barriers at scale when not built with accessibility in mind. From heading structures to color contrast, the duo shares tips on what to look out for and how to fix it. They also touch on recent accessibility lawsuits that highlight the real-world consequences of getting it wrong. So settle in, grab your favorite beverage, and let's talk about how to turn your templates from risky to reliable.
In this episode of Chax Chat, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro dive into the world of artificial intelligence and its role in accessibility. From AI-generated alt text to document remediation tools, they explore the balance between automation and accuracy. You'll hear real-world examples, a few rants, and some solid advice for those navigating this evolving landscape. Whether you're curious about what's next or skeptical of the hype, this episode offers valuable insights and a few laughs along the way. So pour yourself a cup of curiosity, and let's jump right in!
In this episode of Chax Chat, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro tackle some of the most common challenges in document accessibility. From overlooked tagging issues to the hidden complexities of tables and lists, they break down key remediation strategies that can save you time and frustration. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, this conversation is packed with practical tips to help you create compliant, user-friendly PDFs. So sit back, grab your favorite mug of whatever, and let's get into it!
This is really a trick question. In this episode we discuss how to answer the question "What is the one tool you use for accessibility?" Chad and Dax start out by discussing the merits of getting an accessibility certification and then move on to talk about a couple of new scripts that are currently on their website. Specifically one that helps hide and show items in the Adobe InDesign Articles panel. Chad drops a pro-tip on the ROI of purchasing the right tools to speed up your production time and Dax lets everyone know about the great handout available in the downloads section of the website called: Unlocking C-Suite Motivation. This great handout empowers you with the tools to know how to approach your execs in the way that speaks to them, increasing your chances of getting buy-in for tools, training and establishing an accessibility program within your organization. If you have not registered for the Venngage webinar today be sure to visit https://bit.ly/A11yScale If you missed it you can still get the handout on our website in the downloads section of the menu.
They say the best way to learn a language is by working with a native speaker, and learning Assistive Technology is no different. We are thrilled to have Kristen Witucki from Tamman Inc join us today on Chax Chat to talk about her experience as a native assistive technology user. Kristen walks us through the way she uses NVDA and JAWS, her setting preferences, and how the use of this technology affects her day to day life. Kristen works with Tamman Inc both as an Assistive Technology Communications Expert, as well as the host of the podcast Article 19, the podcast that explores accessibility through stories and experiences that tie us all together.
Effective use of alt text, actual text, extended descriptions, and captions are essential for helping the users of accessibility tools read the document the way you intended. Most documents contain more than words alone. Graphics, graphs, photos, and even stylized formats are used to enhance the reader experience. But oftentimes, these visual elements disrupt or even create a barrier for users of AT. In today's episode of Chax Chat, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro discuss some of the pitfalls and barriers caused by the misuse of these important information tools. We talk through different real life examples of how alt text and actual text have been used to solve problems introduced by different graphic design and layout elements.
Today on Chax Chat we talk about designing with accessibility in mind. Creating an accessibility-first mindset is essential to the success of creating documents that maximize accessibility from the start and avoid the time drain of accessibility at the end or redoing the work when the inevitable last-minute change comes. Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they break down Designing accessible trifolds Implementing accessible QR codes Captions Table of Contents, and; Reasons to avoid Drop Caps
Adobe InDesign offers several features to manage the tags and content of your document for accessibility, but not all panes are built the same! In today's episode of Chax Chat, we are going to explore all three of these windows, the benefits and purposes they serve, and when or when not to use them. Today we will be defining assistive technology, unraveling the tags pane, the order panel, and the content pane. We will also be defining assistive technology and learning more about how to work with tags within your PDF document. Related Episode: Part 2: Top 10 Accessibility Questions Newbies Ask Related Episode: Who does the Reading Order affect? This Guest: Sonya Lewis! Related Episode: Guest Leonard Rosenethol - Content Authenticity, Liquid Mode and Read Order Time Stamps: 0:00 - Introduction 2:52 - Topic Introduction 5:44 - Tags Pane 9:28 - Defining Assistive Technology 11:28 - Working with Tags in a PDF File 14:15 - Order Panel 18:43 - Content Pane 34:26 - Mislabeling Tools
Microsoft Word is said to be one of the best applications for making accessible documents, but how true is that claim? There are a lot of practices that designers use that set them back while working within Word. Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they talk about some of the most common issues document creators encounter when working within this application, best rules to follow to avoid those issues, and how to remediate your document when issues arise. Listen in and learn why you should use caution with templates, missing or artifact document covers within the header, title tags versus H1 tags, accessible links in the footer, how to turn off auto-generated alt-text, bulleted lists and 2 column layouts, creating an automated table of contents, and layout tables. Episode Resources: How does my Bulleted List Sound Document Learn More about axesWord Demonstration Creating Accessible Dot Leaders By Chad Chelius Are Track Changes Accessible? By Dax Castro Time Stamps 0:00 - Introduction 2:13 - Introducing the Topic 3:03 - Using Caution with Pre-Built Templates 5:15 - Document Cover and Headers 7:35 - Title Tag Versus H1 Tag 13:11 - Accessible Links in the Footer 20:04 - How to turn off Auto-generated Alt-text 25:05 - Bulleted Lists and 2 Column Layouts 29:22 - Manual Table of Contents 35:13 - Layout Tables
Learn our favorite tips, tricks, and shortcuts to creating accessible documents in Indesign! Every application has hidden secrets, some so good you wish you knew them sooner. Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they share their experiences behind these shortcuts, how they found them, and how each tip can help you become a quicker, more proficient document accessibility expert. In this episode, we will cover how to name and outline heading levels, adding styles to headers, editing all export tags, different techniques to add Items to the articles panel, using the escape key to select the table cell, creating an object style for artifacting, and creating shortcuts to assign a heading level. Find the Accessible InDesign Starter Template by visiting: https://www.accessibilityunraveled.com/accessible-indesign-styles/ Get a demonstration of MadeToTag by visiting: Accessibilityunraveled.com/axesWord Time Stamps 0:00: Introduction 3:30 - Topic Introduction 5:57 - Name and Outline Headers 12:56 - Adding Styles to Headers 17:09 - Edit All Export Tags 20:13 - Adding Items to the Articles Panel 24:19 - Use Escape to Select the Table Cell 25:06 - Creating an Object Style for Artifacting 29:16 - Creating Shortcuts to Assign Heading Levels
Avoiding a lawsuit is as easy as implementing accessibility correctly the first time. But as many of us know, we still aren't quite there yet. There is a lot of work that needs to be done if we are going to truly have an internet that is accessible to everyone. Many businesses and public entities offer services, products, and information that everyone needs access to, regardless of their ability, and sometimes it feels that a lawsuit is the only way to jumpstart that process. To get an inside look at the legal system, we have invited a special guest to join us of CHAX Chat! Eve Hill of Brown Goldstien & Levy is an ADA lawyer and consultant. In this episode, we are going to hear firsthand what happens in an ADA lawsuit, the step-by-step process when a complaint is filed, and steps you can take to start preparing your company now for success, enabling your company or organization to serve everyone.
“Automation does not guarantee compliance!” is the inspiration behind today's episode. Here at CHAX Accessibility Training. Accessibility Checkers are one such tool. They check for particular issues, but just because a checker does not flag accessibility issues does not mean your documents are compliant. Today we are going to unravel the 7 things that Fail Accessibility but will pass your Checker! Passing the PAC Checker or Acrobat Checker is only the first step to remediating a document. Once you master these 7 items that your checker will miss, you will be ready to test your document with NVDA or JAWS to ensure everyone has the user experience you intend.
There is no doubt that the subject of accessibility and remediation can be a confusing landscape for those just starting out in this wonderful industry. Today, we tackle part two of our Top Ten Questions in accessibility and remediation! Some of these answers might surprise you, as we both learned something new in this episode, too. We discover new tools, like PDFix, review our top applications, discuss some of the oddities in the industry, and so much more. Whether you are new to document remediation or a veteran, there is something to learn every day. This is part 2 of our Top 10 Questions Accessibility Newbies Ask. Part 1 of this two-part episode originally aired Dec 2023.
Understanding how people use accessibility technology is essential to creating accessible media. In this episode, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro dive into the 2024 WebAIM “Screen Reader User Survey #10 Results” to get an inside look on who uses screen reading tools, and where they use them. They cover age, location, favorite reader, and more. Even though we are exploring a relatively small sample size, the information here is invaluable. So sit back, grab your favorite drink, and get our take on the data! Watch the video on our YouTube Channel @A11Y
In this episode Chad Chelius and Dax Castro discuss what it means to understand the user experience of a screen reader as well as accessibility technology at large. Creating documents and digital media has its challenges, but what if your product does not respond the way you expect it to? Learn about how to adapt your understanding to the end user experience in today's episode. We are also excited to share two new A11y terms just for you! Introducing Chax-ified and Chax-essible! Other topics we cover today include our new partnership with Tamman, Inc, the experience of being an accessibility specialist on the Mac series of M1, M2, and M3 computers, our upcoming classes, CSUN, and more!
In this episode, we unravel nested tag structures. Chad and Dax break down lists, TOC, footnotes, and tables. Learn what the most basic way to create a list structure is and how Dax had to hit the books once again to make sure he wasn't telling tales. Chad talks about footnotes and references and why you might hear "Link Link" in your TOC elements. If you struggle to understand which tags get nested inside others, then you definitely want to listen to this episode!
In this episode, we interview Kelly Swanson and Sherri Smith from the Center for Schools and Communities to understand how Sheri was able to initiate interest in document accessibility and start a successful document accessibility program within their organization. Kelly shared key insights from a manager's perspective that can help others in their quest to implement accessibility at a program level.
In this episode, Dax Castro and Chad Chelius talk about the troubles with creating QR codes and reveal the common mistakes people make when trying to make them accessible. They show you how to create them, how to set the placement correctly, and what your options are when it comes to making accessible QR codes for your documents. Chad even shows how you can use InDesign to make your QR codes right in the program. If you struggle with accessible QR codes definitely tune into this episode!
In this final episode for 2023 we look back at the most frequently asked questions by people just starting out in document accessibility. We also dropped a major announcement about the future of Chax Training and Consulting. So you definitely don't want to miss this episode. Top 5 Questions: Do Span Tags Matter? Do Container Tags Matter? How Long Should Alt-text Be? Can I have more than one H1 in my document? What is the difference between deleting a tag and artifacting one? If you felt like we missed any or want to post a final message for the end of the year, please feel free to post in the comments. We read every single one!
In this episode, Chad and Dax discuss the merits of having form fields inside tables. When is it okay? When should you avoid tables as a means of laying out accessible form-based documents? Listen in and you will learn what to ask and how to determine if it is okay to put your form in a table. We also take a quick look at the new PAC 2024 interface and our thoughts on the new release.
You have heard us mention Venngage a few times and have featured it on our podcast. Now we thought it would be great to invite Venngage CEO, Eugene Woo on the program to talk about is journey in creating this accessible online design tool. We talk about the struggles and costs of going down the road of accessibility but more importantly, the cost of NOT going down that path. Eugene also discusses how they took the opportunity to teach unfamiliar users about accessibility as they create their documents with the hope of getting more people thinking about accessibility from the start. Definitely great to hear Eugene talk about how they made a comittment to make their design tool accessible and able to produce accessible PDFs.
Chad and Dax take this session to talk about the possibility of having too much accessibility in the form of multiple patterns in pie charts. They discuss the merits of several approaches to making pie charts visually more accessible. Stick around to hear them give out some secret sauce for troubleshooting tables that just don't seem to want to pass accessibility. Their tip might just save you hours of needlessly hunting for the mislabeled property. Oh, and if you want to skip the koi pond banter, skip ahead 7 minutes. Watch this podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-F1VtJyMW34
Are you using accessible color contrast and colorblind-friendly designs? Chad answers the question: "Does it really Matter if I make my designs colorblind compliant?" Learn some important colorblind statistics and find out who needs to make their designs accessible? We share some things you can do to make your graphic colors accessible and review the WCAG success criteria 1.4.1 Use of Color. Dax gives you some easy ways to make your maps more accessible and Chad shares the color contrast ratio for Graphics and his preferences for making line graphs more accessible.
Senior UX Researcher, Inclusive Designer and Accessibility Design Lead Sonya Lewis agrees to be our guest this week to talk about how the Reading Order in PDFs impacts her ability to apply for heathcare enrollement, participate in her workplace and overall online presence. Chad and I loved her response when we asked the question "What do you say to people who think the Reading Order in PDFs doesn't really matter?" Be sure to listen in to hear Chad ask an important question about Snoop Dogg and his role in accessibility. This episode is one of the best we've had this year! Don't you dare miss it!
We stumbled on to an online design tool that is giving Canva a run for their money. We show you our first impressions about the product and the accessibility features it has and a few ways we might suggest improving it. We also reveal the new EASY way to set the PDF/UA Identifier in Adobe Acrobat. Dax mentions the upcoming guest and their struggles with reading order in PDF documents. Finally, Chad reveals some insights on Form Tags: Before or after the text label?
Listen to Chad and Dax talk about alternate descriptions for hyperlinks and what WCAG has to say about it. We mention PDF/UA-2 set to remove the mandatory requirement for alternate link descriptions. Chad shares a users comment "I want users of assistive technology to have the same crappy experience a sighted person has when reading long URLs." You will get a chuckle out of our "Six Degrees of separation from Dyson," and why where the link takes you matters. Later on we discuss how visual cues reduce our cognitive load and share the PDF for the Do No Harm Guide on Design Visualization found at https://bit.ly/a11yDNHG Chad explains "Reading through a rectangle" and Dax discusses at what point is the level of effort too much or enough? We end with balancing "no significant barrier" and level of effort in documents. Definitely an information-packed episode.
CAUTION: Highly controversial accessibility topics in this podcasts: Do we need to set the reading order in my PDFs? 2. Title Tag or H1? We discuss a real-world situation where someone's barrier to information in a PDF is not vision. However, because of a traumatic event this person has dyslexia and requires audio input to fully understand the content on the page they are reading. We discuss how reading order is affected by the source document. We look at MS Word and InDesign and discuss the challenges with each when considering reading order. We also discuss designing with accessibility in mind to account for setting the reading order as the content is developed rather than addressing it in the end. Once again we approach perspectives on using the Title tag as the title on the cover of a document even though screen readers today only announce it as a tag which doesn't declare any structure or importance. We also discuss the potential risks and benefits of manually "fixing" the title tag or the H1. Buckle up for this one! You will either love us or start yelling at your phone or computer! No worries. We can take it.
This week's podcast is truly an amazing goldmine of information if you struggle with creating accessible infographics? Chad Chelius and Dax Castro walk through 7 Questions to ask yourself before creating an accessible infographic: What do we want the user experience to be? What is the most important information? Does Content order matter? Does color or line weight indicate additional information? What is the volume of data? (Do I need an alternate presentation?) Can I support the graphic with additional body text? Can I test the user experience? Stay tuned toward the end, where we talk about how certain bullets are voiced by JAWS and the info on how to download the PDF that lists a ton of them. I bet you will be surprised at more than a few. I hope you find this podcast useful because it is definitely one of my new favorites we have recorded this year!
In this episode we talk with Recosoft Founder, Paul Chadha about Decks MoveIn. This is a great plugin for creating InDesign documents from PowerPoint slides. We all know that PowerPoint was never meant to be a desktop publishing software. It is a presentation tool. However, there are times when we need to push the content limits. Instead of spending an hour or more fixing your PDF, just move from PPT to InDesign and let the Decks MoveIn plugin from Recosoft help speed up the process. Stick around to learn more about how Decks MoveIn can even convert Keynote, Canva and Google Slides to InDesign as well.
In this accessibility podcast episode, we discuss designing with accessibility in mind when it comes to the covers of magazines and maps in your PDF documents. We talk about the importance of reading order and understanding how a user might want to read the document from both a screen reader and a sighted user experience. This is a really great episode packed with some really interesting ideas on methods for presenting accessible content. For sure one of my favorite podcasts to date!
In this episode we talk about the difference between barriers, violations and poor user experiences. We review a practice we are seeing more and more of, navigation bars inside PDF documents. We discuss a few solutions using Adobe InDesign to use these navigation bars in a more accessible way. Listen in and Chad will give you a huge time-saving way to incorporate those nav bars in the most accessible way possible. Dax talks about ways to structure your PDF document to improve the user experience even more.
In this episode we cover the potential risks for remediation professionals concerning the newly released Assembly Bill AB 1757. We also reveal a very important bug in the latest update of Adobe Acrobat. Stick around to hear Chad and I explain the difference between alt-text, actual text and expansion text. Then Chad reveals how to turn off the new switched layout in the latest Acrobat Interface Update. Make sure you listen to the end to hear how Adobe fixes long style names and Chad reveals a tool I never knew existed in Adobe InDesign. He tells how the "Break Link to Style" tool works and when and why you should use it.
Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they discuss some great tips for presenting accessibly when giving a PowerPoint (or OneNote) presentation. If you stay til the end you will get the URL to the handout that goes along with their talking points. I bet there are at least a few you hadn't considered!
Chad and Dax take a look at some interesting new trends from the WebAIM report published every few years. #9 has some really interesting turns in the statistics that we take a closer look at.
Accessibility Advocate Cam Beaudoin joins Chad Chelius and Dax Castro on Global Accessibility Awareness day (GAAD) to talk about ways to keep your company motivated to take action to improve accessibility beyond the celebratory day.
Chad Chelius and Dax Castro talk through some of the nuances of the European Accessibility Standard, EN 301 549. Do you know which countries adopted this standard? Some things we found were surprising and others just made sense. Stick around to hear our discussion on Reflow and why it is missing from the accessibility standard.
In this podcast, Chad Chelius and Dax Castro talk about the top 7 things that usually come up for people just starting their PDF remediation journey. How many of these have you experienced? Not only do we talk about them, we help you solve them! Listen in as we cover the following 7 struggles for new PDF accessibility remediators. What is the correct size for accessible text? My content disappeared! Reading Order messed up my Tags Tree! Links in my header/footer are not being tagged! My hyperlink descriptions are not being voiced! Why do I keep getting irregular table errors? What program should I use to remediate my content? If you want to know how to fix or address any of these errors ake sure you listen to this episode on your favorite streaming platform or watch us now on YouTube!
This episode of Chax Chat discusses what you need to know when transitioning from WCAG 2.0, 2.1 and getting ready for WCAG 2.2 for your PDF documents. We cover: 1.4.10 Reflow AA - Users with low vision who need to make things larger. The content will wrap inside the viewport instead of causing horizontal scroll. 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast AA: Extends 3:1 contrast minimums to important graphical information, visible focus indicators and other interactive controls when those indicators are necessary to identify the control as interactive. 1.4.12 Text Spacing - people think this applies to PDF but it does not. Listen to the podcast to learn why. 2.5.8 Pointer Target Spacing (AA) - The size of the target for pointer inputs is at least 44 CSS pixels 3.2.6 Consistent Findable Help (A) - Contact info in footer consistently 3.3.7 Redundant Entry (A) - Fillable forms with repeat entries should have the same Field Name. Watch the video: https://youtu.be/VZoQmerCwmo
Chad and Dax jump in front of the camera for this episode. You can find the video on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@a11y. In this eposide we cover the steps to making sure your document is compliant and usable. Many people do not understand what it means to be accessible and think that passing the PDF checker is all that is needed to "be accessible." You do not want to miss the key steps we cover that you need to make sure your document is actually usable for people using assistive technology and those with low vision, color blindness etc.
Accessibility Podcast: How to use the FREE ISO-32000 PDF/UA Standard PDF Standard ISO 32000-2 is available for free! Chad and Dax peel back the cover of the 1003 page PDF/UA standard. They focus on Chapter 14 and key areas you might find useful. Download the standard at PDFA.org/sponsored-standards and follow along with us. Make sure you are using MS Edge because we found the cart has some compatibility challenges. Chax hits 25,000 podcast downloads Pave the Way to Global Accessibility Awareness Day Visit: http://nic.edu/PWGAAD Be sure to listen to our findings about Hidden or Invisible Content if you have ever thought you cannot use hidden content or that it is illegal or against WCAG to do so. We reference specific directions on this important technique for providing enriched user experiences. In Chapter 14 Document Interchange we answer the following questions: 1. What is an MCID? - Table 357 2. Why you get the duplicate MCID error 3. We reference 14.8.2.2 "Real Content" and "Artifacts" to understand what each of these elements are 4. What is a BBox and why do you get a BBox error and how to fix it? 5. Can you use Hidden or Invisible Page Content? We reference Section 14.8.2.4 and the answer might shock you! 6. What is the difference between Page Content order and Logical Content (Tag) order? We take a look at 14.8.2.5 Page Content order and Logical Content Order (Tag Order) and what it says there. 7. What are Container Tags and why should I care? We look at 14.8.4.2 Nesting of Structural Elements to look at the Document, Part, Article, Section, Div elements and even the non-struct tag and when you should use it. 8. What is the Aside tag? We also talk about how the Aside could be improved. 9. What is the difference between a block-level and inline-level element. Not only do we explain what it is, we look at the table in section 14.8.4.5 10. What is a Caption tags and how to use it? This is an episode you will want to listen to over and over again. We unpack a lot in this one! Did you have a favorite topic from this episode you want us to dive deeper into? If you want us to do more disection of the PDF/UA ISO-32000 please let us know in the comments below. http://nic.edu/PWGAAD
Guests Jeremy Seda IT Accessibility Coordinator and Jacalyn Stallings Vocational Rehab Counselor tell us all about the upcoming Pave the Way for Global Accessibility Awareness Day at North Idaho College April 19th. We talk about creating a culture of change and a few teaching moments related to unintended microagressions. It was great to hear Jeremy's approach to keeping momentum and building a culture of intentional accessibility at North Idaho College. Jacalyn brought up an amazing benefit for audio descriptions that we had not considered. This is a great episode that you definitely don't wanna miss.
Should certifications be hard? Chad and I discuss Karl Groves' recent article that discusses the question and why we agree. Chad and I discuss another great question: "Do links always need alt-text?" We take a look at what WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose says and whether it supports, or doesn't support the idea that hyperlinks always need alt-text. You have to listen to Dax's analogy as he compares an insole and a shoe to an annotation and the link text. Listen to the What do you think? Did you know that when you apply alt-text to a link the descriptive text replaces the URL? It fundamentally acts like Actual text and does not voice the visually available text. So you need to be careful about what you use as a description. Be sure to tune in to hear Chad walk through how to map new styles in MS Word to accessible heading styles and even how to properly map the existing Title style to an H1. He continues to drop serious knowledge when he talks about what not to name your styles in Adobe InDesign.
Special guest Harpaul Chadha (Paul) from Recosoft Corporation, joins us to talk about solutions for creating InDesign files from Accessible PowerPoint and PDF documents! WHAT??!?! Yep. PowerPoint to InDesign is a thing and DecksMoveIn makes it happen, accessibly! Paul talks about how DecksMovein considers accessibility when importing your content. This plugin transfers your reading order, alt-text and creates styles to properly import your PowerPoint content into InDesign. Chad and I mention the possible opportunity to move clients from PowerPoint to InDesign. We remeniss about a client or two that use PowerPoint to create flyers and other documents and how this might be a good tool to bring them into a formal design program. I really enjoyed listening to Paul and his authentic consideration for InDesign users. It was really great to hear his passion and commitment to producing quality content that considers how users create and format their files. Be sure to stick around to listen to Chad discuss Paul's other product PDF2ID that literally takes a PDF and resets it into a useable and viable InDesign document. I had no idea the product had been around for 15 years! If you have ever wanted to grab all the assets from a PDF (images, charts, and graphs) to use elsewhere, Paul's tool Assets to ID is amazing. The fact that it put them in folders by page is really smart! At the end we brainstorm about how to make the tool even better by maximizing alt-text and a few other cool thoughts! Be sure to check it the free demo at www.recosoft.com
Chad and Dax talk about the journey of accessibility for the online design platform, CANVA. You may be surprised to know that just a few months ago there were no tags available for any CANVA document. While they have made some improvements and documents are now saving with some semblance of tags, there is still a long way to go to meet the WCAG Success Criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. If you are using CANVA as a design platform you do not want to miss this episode. Share this post with your Art Director if they are telling you to use CANVA and still want you to make the documents accessible. Stick around for our discussion on inline Figures in Microsoft Word. If you struggle with passing the Microsoft Word Checker error of "Images not inline," you will want to hear us discuss why this happens and what you can do or not do about this error.
Accessible Tables Podcast Chad and Dax jump feet first into dispelling some myths about accessible tables and have a change in thinking about another common table practice. Be sure to listen how Dax's opinion on the A1 cell has changed. Chad makes a great arguement for maintaining the best practice of adding a meaningful label in the A1 cell. Make sure to say tuned to hear our plea to Adobe to allow us access to a key area of a table from the tags tree and Dax's super secret tip for troubleshooting a broken table. Link to Blank Cells Blog Post http://bit.ly/Blankcells Link to Podcast on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/6p76kx2LHProHMFdcuRmmf Link to Podcast on Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chax-chat-accessibility-podcast/id1561464055
Join Chad Chelius and Dax Castro as they welcome Jason Taylor Chief Innovations Officer at UsableNet to discuss the ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuits and Trends Report. Learn how they collect the data for the report. Find out what happened in 2017 that sparked the report. Chad brings up the topic of Overlays and the ensuing discussion may shock you. Dax has a suprising point of view on them. Find out the answer to the question of "Who is checking anyway?" Chad brings up the different legal point of view between Canada's legal outlook on accessibility and the USA. You won't want to miss his comments on web accessibility and Jason's closing comments on a corporation's legal risk relating to accessibility.
Join our guests Christine Foushi and John Foliot of Content Industries as they talk about accessible epubs. We explore the different versions, how they are structured. Did you know that epubs are basically HTML 5 documents? Stay tuned to listen to us talk about the importance of metadata at the book-level rather than the data-level. We reveal the secret of converting a zip to an epub and how to reverse engineer a word doc to get to the hidden zip contents! Christine and I also have a great discussion about the woes and wonders of alt-text for images. Finally, we get to hear about the online epub testing tool currently under development. This was a really interesting episode!
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