PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and their Alternatives
Introduction
When we talk about the web, we are usually referring to HTML documents, but more and more, people are also putting non-HTML documents on the Web, such as Word files, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slide shows, Adobe Acrobat PDF files, along with the other formats we discussed last week such as Flash, videos, and sound files. These days, the web is much more than just HTML documents. All of this content must be developed with accessibility in mind in order to make the internet more accessible to people with disabilities.
2 Main Strategies
There are two main strategies for making non-HTML content accessible:
- Make the content directly accessible in its native format
- Make an accessible alternative HTML version instead (or in addition to the other format)
Making the content directly accessible is the ideal approach in many ways. It would be great if all of the many formats could be made directly accessible to people who use screen readers, to people who can't use a mouse, to people who can't distinguish colors, to people who can't hear audio, to people who have difficulties with memory or perception or attention, and so on. It would be great, but unfortunately it is usually a bit more difficult to make these non-HTML formats accessible than it is to make HTML accessible. Some non-HTML formats have fatal flaws that make compliance with accessibility guidelines impossible.
In this lesson we are focusing on Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat PDF. The good news is that all of these can be made reasonably accessible to most people with disabilities, even in their native formats. There are also ways of providing accessible HTML alternatives.
Reading Materials
The reading materials in the WebAIM web site for this week's lesson are:
- Microsoft Word: http://webaim.org/techniques/word/
- PowerPoint: http://webaim.org/techniques/powerpoint/
- Adobe Acrobat PDF: http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/
Extra Credit
Extra credit is an option with this lesson. To earn it, do one of the following:
- Create a tagged PDF file using Acrobat Pro
- Create an HTML-based slide show using either the "Opera Show" technique or the "S5" technique
PowerPoint Alternatives
From my perspective, the ability to create slide shows without ever using PowerPoint at all is one of the most exciting things about this week's materials. Using the techniques invented by the makers of the Opera browser, you can create an entire presentation using only one HTML file (plus some CSS and JavaScript). Opera dubbed this technique "Opera Show" (see the Opera Show tutorial and the Opera Show Generator) Opera Show isn't a software program. You don't have to buy anything. It's just an HTML file. It's a web page. But it acts like a multi-paged slide show. It's pretty cool :-)
Eric Meyer used the Opera Show technique as a basis for his S5 technique. S5 is Opera Show-compatible. In other words, it's just a web page, and works in the same way that the Opera Show technique works, but S5 adds additional functionality and works in several browsers, not just Opera.
To create an S5 slide show, you can either go to Eric Meyer's S5 page http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/, download his source files, then modify them to fit your needs, or you can go to S5 Presents at http://s5presents.com/ and create an online slide show (it's free).
