Improving Real-Time Collaboration in Google Docs for Assistive Technology Users

It’s now easier for users of assistive technologies, like screen readers and Braille displays, to keep track of real-time updates made by collaborators in a document. With live edits, you can view a periodically updated summary of collaborator changes in a convenient sidebar. In Google Docs we believe that collaboration works best when it works for everyone.

To see live edits, open the Accessibility settings by going to Tools > Accessibility settings and check “Turn on screen reader support.” Then, select “Show live edits” from the Accessibility menu. To learn more, see this article in Google's Help Center.

Helpful links

• Help Center: Collaborate and comment with a screen reader
• Help Center: Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs
• Help Center: Accessibility for Docs editors

Reach out to IT Services with any questions:

• Email: its@manhattan.edu
• Call: 718-862-7973

Partially reposted from:  Improving real-time collaboration in Google Docs for assistive technology users

Participate in Global Accessibility Awareness Day: May 16

Participate in Global Accessibility Awareness Day

In support of President O'Donnell's GAAD campus wide initiative please review these resources:

Experience Accessibility First-Hand on May 16

Whether you participate in a public or private event to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, on May 16, we encourage designers, developers, usability professionals, and everyone else to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack there of).

Go Mouseless For An Hour

Go ahead and unplug your mouse and only use your keyboard alone (tab/shift tab, arrow keys, enter and spacebar) to navigate and interact with your favorite websites and applications. If you use a touchpad, trackpad or similar input method, disable it, and use the keyboard instead.

Developers and designers, we encourage you to visit a site you were involved in creating and take it for a test-drive.

• Is there a visible focus indicator (i.e., do you know where you are) at all times as you navigate each screen using the tab and shift tab keys?
• Are you able to interact with every element that receives focus using the keyboard alone?
• If there is any element that provides functionality if you hover over it with your mouse, such as revealing a tooltip or a set of actions, can you display this strictly using the keyboard alone?

Enlarge Your Fonts

Check that your page(s) is accessible and usable for low vision/visually impaired users.

To do this, use your browser and resize the text to 200 percent. Now look at the screen, and make sure there is no loss of content or functionality.

Have all elements resized, including all widgets?

To meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.0 Level AA, the only allowable exceptions are captions and images of text.

Check for Sufficient Color Contrast

An often forgotten but important accessibility item is making sure that a page has sufficient color contrast.

Download a color contrast analyzer such as this one from The Paciello Group (which works for Windows and Mac) and find out how your page(s) stack up.

Check Order of Elements

Check your Page(s) to make sure elements will be read by screen readers in the correct order.

To check this, disable the page's stylesheets and compare the order of elements before and after.

Surf The Web With A Screen Reader For An Hour

There are a number of free/open source screen readers available for Windows users. One of the more popular ones is NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA). Take a bit of time beforehand to download the software and learn some of NVDA’s documented basic keystrokes.

Mac users, you have a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver on your systems. Take some time to visit the site referenced to familiarize yourself with how to turn on VoiceOver and some of the basic keystrokes.

On May 16, unplug your mouse (blind users do not use the mouse), launch your screen reader, and spend an hour using some of your favorite sites strictly using the keyboard alone (tab/shift tab, arrow keys, enter and spacebar) and not the mouse/trackpad. Why not turn off your screen and depend strictly on the information conveyed by the screen reader.

Developers and designers, we encourage you to visit a site you were involved in creating and take it for a test-drive.

Learn About And Use Other OS/Mobile Accessibility Features

The Windows 10 Operating System has a number of built-in accessibility features, as does the Mac Operating System. iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices also have accessibility features. Take an hour to explore what these are and try them out on the Web. In the case of the mobile devices, why not try using some of your favorite apps with different accessibility features enabled.

Try Other Adaptive Software Tools

The Adaptech Research Network has a library of free or inexpensive software that is useful to people with disabilities. Why not try one or more of these software.

Contact IT Services with any questions:

• Call: 718-862-7973
• Email: its@manhattan.edu

Partially reposted from:  Participate in Global Accessibility Awareness Day

Digital Accessibility Challenge Week 5

Creating Accessible PDF's

Overview:

Manhattan College ITS is encouraging employees to begin to take some simple steps that will structure your documents so that they are more accessible. When creating documents, spreadsheets or presentations it is important to provide an organized structure to all your documents in a way that allows them to be accessible. Fortunately many word processing tools such as MS Word or Google Docs are advanced in the accessibility area and allows you to use features generally available within each tool.

Objective:

Last week’s focus was on creating accessible Google Docs. This week’s challenge we will focus on best practices, for creating accessible PDF's. The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) provides a convenient way to transport, view and print electronic documents. PDF files are typically created in other applications like MS Word and PowerPoint. They can also be produced by scanning the pages of a book or journal article.

This week will focus on examining some of the features that make PDF documents more usable by a diverse audience. The information will also provide techniques for improving the accessibility of existing and new PDF documents.

Note: This section refers to two Adobe software applications. Reader and Acrobat. Adobe Reader is a free application that is limited to viewing, searching and printing PDF files. Adobe Acrobat, by contrast, is a full-featured application that allows for the creation and editing of PDF documents.

How Does Digital Accessibility Impact Manhattan College Faculty, Staff and Students?

Faculty creating instructional materials and presenting lessons.
Employees creating documents, forms, newsletters and correspondence for distribution.
Students writing reports and preparing presentations.

Other ways to make a document more accessible so it ready to be converted to PDF include:

 Create Clear Titles:

Straightforward PDF titles are key for achieving clarity in your content. The people are going to first need to find the document on your website. Align the title of the document with the type of information that is included in the PDF file. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of this file? What type of information would a customer need from this document? For example, if the document is a business loan application, then a good file title is quite simply Business Loan Application. 

Defining PDF Accessibility

Before discussing accessibility of PDF files, it is important to distinguish between Adobe, Acrobat and PDF.  These items are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same.
Adobe is company, they are the creators of Acrobat.
Acrobat is a tool for creating, editing and viewing PDF files.
PDF is a format or type of document. It stands for Portable Document Format. The PDF format was created by Adobe.
The terms Adobe, Acrobat and PDF are related in the same way as Microsoft, Word and doc.
Some Manhattan College departments pay for Adobe Acrobat licenses, they would follow instructions on how to  Create PDFs from Microsoft Office

Overview

PDF files are not typically created in Acrobat. They are usually created in another program and converted to PDF. There are dozens or probably hundreds of programs that can create PDF files, but very few of them produce tagged PDF files. If you are using Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, you can often create accessible, tagged PDF files without opening Acrobat. Of course, the accessibility of the PDF depends on the accessibility of the original document.

What are PDF tags?

The technical answer is this: Tags define the function and order of content in a document. Many PDF tags resemble their counterparts in HTML. For example, there is a <p> tag for paragraphs, <table> and <td> for tables and table cells, <h1> for level 1 headings, etc. Although they are normally invisible, tags provide valuable interpretive cues to assistive technology like screen reader software, and are therefore an essential part of PDF accessibility.

Fortunately, tags are generated automatically during conversion from Microsoft Office applications using the “Adobe PDF” menu. The Adobe PDF menu is a part of Acrobat PDFMaker, an application added to Office applications when Acrobat is installed.

Tags can also be added manually in Acrobat by choosing Advanced > Accessibility > Add Tags to Document. Once applied, tags can be edited to improve or customize document organization.

Bookmarks

Each PDF document contains a navigation pane called "Bookmarks." A bookmark is a type of link with representative text in the Bookmarks panel in the navigation pane. Each bookmark goes to a different view or page in the document. Bookmarks are generated automatically during PDF creation from the table-of-contents entries of documents created by most desktop publishing programs. These bookmarks are often tagged and can be used to make edits in the PDF. Bookmarks can be easily added and edited in Adobe Acrobat.

Scanning to PDF

It is best to create a PDF from an original electronic document. However, if scanning is the only method available, take care with the scanning process. Use a clean copy of the article and place it squarely on the scanner process. Use a clean copy of the article and place it squarely on the scanner Avoid pages that have been photocopied multiple times. Obtaining a clear image of the text is essential to the next step in the creation of an accessible PDF document: optical character recognition.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

To create a more versatile version of your scanned document, use OCR to convert the image of text to real, editable text. Many scanners offer a “copy as text” feature, which is useful for small blocks of text. Multipage documents can also be scanned and converted to text using OCR, with all of the text stored in a single file.

Adobe Acrobat should bring up a prompt to run OCR when scanning a document, or the option can be chosen from the menu: Document > Recognize Text Using OCR > Start. Note that character recognition is not foolproof, and proofreading is always recommended after using OCR.

The accuracy of OCR is affected by several factors:

• The quality of the source image (i.e., whether the text is crisp and legible) 

• The typeface (font) of the original text 

• Whether the page was squarely positioned on the scanner 

• The resolution of the scanned image, often measured in dots per inch (DPI) 

• The quality of the OCR software

OCR tools vary in quality and accuracy. The OCR engine built into Adobe Acrobat is adequate for most jobs. Also, the resolution of your scan may help determine the success of OCR. Setting the scanner to 300 dpi (dots per inch) usually yields good results, although occasionally a setting of 600 dpi may be required, especially when working with small type. Resolutions higher than 600 dpi produce larger files with no increase in OCR accuracy.

Converting Electronic Documents to PDF

Start with a MS Word document, you will be able to export the document to PDF using the following:

Converting to PDF in Microsoft Office 

Converting from Microsoft Office is the best way to convert from Office files to PDF since it maintains the accessibility of the document the best. Follow these instructions on converting your documents to PDF in Office on Windows or Mac:

Windows: Converting to PDF in Microsoft Office

To convert a Word Doc to PDF using Microsoft Word on Windows, select: 
File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document 
select the Create PDF/XPS Document button.

To convert a Powerpoint to PDF using Microsoft Powerpoint on Windows, select: 
File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document  
select the Create PDF/XPS Document button.

To convert an Excel spreadsheet to PDF using Microsoft Excel on Windows, select: 
File > Export > Create PDF/XPS Document 
 More information on converting to Office files to PDF on Windows, is available:   Converting Microsoft Office files to PDF on Windows

Make sure that you select the option for Tagged PDFs:

MacOS: Converting to PDF in Microsoft Office

To convert a Word, Powerpoint, and Excel file as a PDF in Office for Mac select File > Save As and beside File Format you will specify PDF as the File Format that you would like to export to. When  finished, select Export.

For more information on converting to Office files to PDF on MacOS, refer to: Converting Microsoft Office files to PDF on MacOS







Sometimes when creating a PDF, especially by scanning a document, it does not allow for an accessible document. Create a PDF using a quality scanner app as long as it is not an image. Make sure that the scanner you are using makes use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so that it can scan the words on the document so that a screen reader can read what is scanned. (i.e. phone app)

Other ways to make a document more accessible so it ready to be converted to PDF include:

Create Clear Titles:

Straightforward PDF titles are key for achieving clarity in your content. The people are going to first need to find the document on your website. Align the title of the document with the type of information that is included in the PDF file. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of this file? What type of information would a customer need from this document? For example, if the document is a business loan application, then a good file title is quite simply Business Loan Application.

Optimize Content for Screen Readers: 

Many people who have visual disabilities will use a screen reader to access the information in a PDF document. Therefore, it’s important to use readable language and steer away from acronyms, symbols or shortcuts. While a screen reader can read those, it may not be clear to the individual listening. After the document is found, the people will need to find the appropriate section within the document to fulfill their needs. Look beyond the title of the document and into the headings.

Summary:

Once you complete reviewing the materials from the fifth week of the Digital Accessibility Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: 
 Week 5 Digital Accessibility Questionnaire

Participants who complete all 5 weeks of the Digital Accessibility Challenge will be awarded a Credly Digital Badge in recognition of their effort, for more information review:  ITS to Launch 5 Week Digital Accessibility Challenge.

Other Resources:

 Adobe Acrobat User Guide: Editing PDFs

 Adobe Acrobat User Guide: Create PDFs from Microsoft Office

 Converting Microsoft Office files to PDF on Windows 

 Converting Microsoft Office files to PDF on MacOS

Partially reposted from: Converting Microsoft Office files to PDF on Windows Converting and Microsoft Office files to PDF on Windows