Accessibility in PDF files embedded in the website

[Ajay5CEB]

We want to build accessibility in PDF documents embedded in a website. In the View Document mode within our website, the screen reader such as NVDA is not able to read the contents of the document. 

Please suggest what do we need to do in order for the screen reader to read the contents of the PDF doc embedded within the Website and also identify any editable fields which may need to be filled in by the end user. 

[Joel Geraci · Accepted solution]

The contents of the PDF in an embedded view are currently not available to screen readers but I'll forward this post to our product team as a feature request.

[Ajay5CEB]

Thank you for the prompt response Joel. This is quite helpful to know.

[SAMANTHA5EEF]

Please do, there are many websites for which ADA compliancy is an absolute must. Thank you!!! 🙂

[lawrencet86815829]

Really should be a third option for these questions. The problem isn't solved. It should be listed as an open issue. ADA compliance is more important than anything else you are working on. Get this done.

[lawrencet86815829]

OK I did more research. It turns out that indeed ACCESSIBILTY IS AVAILABLE IN THE PDF EMBED!!!!!!!!!!
It turns out that it is a hidden feature that is almost accessible to screen readers after navigating through a bunch of controls!!!!!!!!
This feature should be able to be enabled programatically or better yet turned on by default via the code if desired.

<input class="Accessibility__elementInvisible___3eGvf __web-inspector-hide-shortcut__" type="checkbox" id="accscreen" aria-disabled="false" value="Enable Accessibility for screen reader.">

but there is no code to make the checkbox visible.

Please help!!!!!!!!!!!

[lawrencet86815829]

And once again I have to insist. WEBSITE ACCESSIBILITY IS THE LAW OF THE LAND

That a feature is already available, but remains somewhat hidden or hard to get to is frankly ridiculous Especially when all we need is the code to set the the default or make a check box visible.

Also for accessibility there needs to be an attribute to name the iframe that is generated by the script. 

[Raymond Camden]

Hi Lawrence, we are working on bringing accessibility to PDF Embed. While you were able to see some aspects of previous work by digging into the code (I do that too 🙂 - we have not made it generally available because we want to ensure that everyone gets the expected performance and reading experience. We *absolutely* recognize how important this is. We will update our docs as soon as possible.

[lawrencet86815829]

THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THIS RESPONSE!

Just to let you know that the ability isn't that hidden, I recognized it was there because when using a screen reader it was a surprise option when I was tabbing through. I imagine many people didn't find it because when tabbing through there are a lot of buttons that have no names, (something else that should be addressed) so they got lost if they weren't as persitent as I. The other thing I noticed is that pagination doesn't work. No matter what page one is on it starts reading from the top.
My dream though for maximum accessibility would be a pdf  reader that rendered compliant html on the fly. Now That would be a game changer! 🙂

[umair14]

Hi Raymond,

We observed below accessibility issues on pdf iframe options.

1) Screen reader reads top menu as unlabeled 0, Unlabeled 1 - Can't we have meaningful name?
2) Can we enable accessibility check box to the user, as it is getting extra tab focus for the normal user? Or how we can remove it from DOM to avoid tab focus (ADA keyboard controls) on it until it is made visible?
3) After keyboard tab focus on hidden accessibility check box, the tab focus is going to the pdf content. How we can restrict the tab focus to the PDF content?
4) Finally we need to press extra tab to come out of  the Iframe, which is not read by screenreader as well. We don't know what element is there but the focus goes to some hidden element which even screenreader is not able to read.
Is there any way to modify iframe elements, remove elements and provide name and title to the elements?

[Raymond Camden]

I do not have any more to add yet to what I said above. As mentioned though - we get how important it is to get this working right.

[umair14]

Hi Raymond,

Is there any update on accessibility issues on SDK PDF Viewer? Its been 6 months now. Any roadmap or progress on it? 

[Raymond Camden]

Not at this time. The best I can suggest is to follow our blog (https://medium.com/adobetech) as we use it for product announcements. Our docs have release notes too. 

[Ezra5CC3]

Respectfully, how top of a priority can it be if it's been 4 months without any progress in resolving this?

As a legally blind person - more important than my career in digital accessibility - I'm disappointed that Adobe doesn't care about us.

[SAMANTHA5EEF]

Someone needs to get sued over it, maybe then it will be a priority.

[lawrencet86815829]

They don't get it. Whomever is working on this needs to drop everything else and make accessibility the only thing they are working on. Accessibility mandates are the law of the land. As I said before, muchore useful would be rendering PDFs as compliant HTML

[Ezra5CC3]

Is there an update on this ongoing and severe accessibility violation? Is there a page documenting the progress on this known issue? 

Are there any workarounds that are being provided?

Thanks in advance for not letting this fall through the cracks with a prompt response.

[Raymond Camden]

Sorry no update yet, I can absolutely assure you it's a top priority. 

[karas43765550]

Hi Raymond,

Do you have an update on this yet? I'm hoping since I'm asking months later that this might be resolved. It's become a large issue within my product. Thank you!

[Raymond Camden]

Please see the other parts of this thread - right now we do not have an update.

[Marci5C7E]

Hello Raymond!

Curious if this has an update yet a year later?

[SAMANTHA5EEF]

*gets some popcorn*

[Raymond Camden]

It is still high priority on our roadmap. That's all I can share now.

[default432mpo3ucs7d]

Hi @Raymond Camden, like many folks before me, I'm looking into using the Adobe PDF Embed API for our website and want to ensure that the embedded PDFs are accessible to screen readers. Can you provide an update on this? I couldn't find a specific update about this in the Adobe Tech Blog -- but I was able to use Windows Narrator to hear the content within the Embed API Demo PDF.