Re: [Phys-l] Using LaTeX to make .pdf documents with accessible images

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 08/22/2008 03:54 PM, Alex Small wrote:

> I'm trying to comply with accessibility requirements on my campus,
> and the first step is to figure out how to add alt tags to an image
> in a .pdf that I created from LaTeX.  (I'll worry about equations
> next, right now it's one step at a time.)  I don't see an option
> for this in the \includegraphics command. 

It's not there.

>  I know that LaTeX2html
> can create accessible html documents with alt tags on the images,
> but what if I want to create a .pdf rather than an html document?
> I did a lot of Googling, and I checked Lamport's book, and I found
> nothing.

By way of background, before we even start talking about tex or latex,
all of this assumes the required features are supported in PDF ...
which is in fact a correct assumption.  The accessibility features
are filed under the general name "tagged PDF".  Adobe has a 115 page
white paper "Creating Accessible PDF Documents with Adobe Acrobat 7.0"
  http://www.adobe.com/enterprise/accessibility/pdfs/acro7_pg_ue.pdf

As of a couple of months ago, there was some preliminary work on
upgrading pdftex to emit tagged PDF.  I quote from:

http://sarovar.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=945&group_id=106&atid=495

> > This is in very alpha stage and is intended for those who are
> > willing to experiment with tagged PDF: you need to know about tagged
> > PDF at low level (chapter 10 from PDF specification), about the
> > \pdfobj primitive of pdftex and some macro programing experience.
> > Please don't try it yet if you want an out-of-the-box solution, since
> > it's not clear yet if it is possible at all.

So if you enjoy working right at the leading edge, you can follow
up on that.

More generally you can try
  http://www.google.com/search?q=pdftex+tagged-pdf+accessible
which is what I used to find the above.