Anyone know how a blind person is supposed to create or edit a PDF when Acrobat isn't screen reader friendly?

Report · Oct 29, 2018

So, Adobe has known about this problem for a little over a year now (that's when I reported it). I'm blind and use a screen reader (JAWS 2018 to be specific). I'm using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and I can't create or edit anything. I even tried using one of their tutorial files to see if, perhaps, it was the documents and files I was using. However, when I used the (Bodea Brochure) I couldn't get a cursor to even show up in the first line of text to correct the spelling of “Legcay” to “Legacy.” None of the pictures were able to be moved or adjusted in any meaningful way (not that I knew what was an image and what was art (because nothing was identified with anything but a number). And, since I had no real sense of where anything was on the page (something that I would have if it were actually my work), I had no real sense of what I was looking at.

The following youtube link demonstrates exactly what I am referring to:

https://youtu.be/lxTVzAOBhsk

So, since Adobe seems to be of no use with regard to their product and it's going to take some time to line up an attorney for a class action (because I can't possibly be the only Blind person being discriminated against by Adobe), I thought I'd come to the Forums and ask if anyone has any ideas on what I can try.

Report · Nov 16, 2018

I struggle mightily with doing even simple PDF edits too. Thing is, Acrobat is just not, was never intended, and will likely never be the proper tool for creating or editing a document. The creation and editing of the source document should take place in a tool intended for the purpose, like MS Word. When done, the finished document can then be converted to PDF. I use Acrobat primarily as a tool to make the converted PDF conform to WCAG and ISO 14389. Adobe has built very limited editing capability into Acrobat over the years, but it is very much a hit or (mostly) miss affair.

Report · Nov 16, 2018

I would be fine with this response if that were true for all users AND Adobe did not advertise within its own tutorials that one can create and/or edit a PDF within Acrobat. However, this is exactly what they do. In fact, if one calls them to seek assistance with this problem; they insist that it can be done very easily... until, of course, you tell them that you don't use a mouse and then, suddenly, they are stumped. So, in fact, their Acrobat Pro DC is set up (advertised) to do editing of text, cropping and resizing of pictures/images, etc. Even if one were simply trying to use this to make a PDF conform to WCAG and ISO, one can't use it with a screen reader to do these tasks.