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Whitlock offers digital accessibility services
Whitlock Business Systems is a large business solutions company that offers full-service printing, graphic design, variable data printing (VDP), publishing, promotional, and other imaging and data capture services. They’re one of the largest in the midwest. In addition to physical documents, they also offer digital services, including converting inaccessible PDFs to accessible formats.
Complex documents required an easy solution
One of their clients, a Michigan healthcare provider, had two long and complex documents which they needed Whitlock to make accessible and compliant with WCAG standards. They asked Whitlock to remediate them. Matthew, a graphic designer, was tasked with completing the remediation project. Both documents were over 250 pages, and both had hundreds of links, complex tables, and nested, secondary, and tertiary lists, making remediation difficult. Many of the documents’ elements hadn’t been set up correctly when the document was created, which added another level of difficulty.
Matthew searched for a PDF remediation solution that made remediation quick and easy and was also easy to learn. He discovered Equidox. Equidox was very intuitive and easy to master. He described the training process as, “Pretty straightforward; learning the basics was pretty quick.”
New features enhance the experience
From the beginning, Equidox made remediation easy, but the new Smart Detection Tools introduced in a recent update were a huge step forward in the remediation process. These tools made remediating the complex tables and lists significantly faster and more automated. The AI-powered List and Table Detectors can identify table and list elements automatically and are easily adjustable using a simple slider feature. Of the software update, Matthew says, “The software has really improved. The sensitivity sliders are much better. It intuits a lot more.”
Customer service – Equidox was always there to help
In addition to the speed and efficiency of Equidox’s new features, Matthew found Equidox’s attention to customer service to be one of its best features. The team was quick to offer help and support whenever needed. “One thing that was really solid from start to finish was the level of customer service. Whenever I had a question there was always a reply, and I always heard back within 24 hours.”
Any time the team assisted Matthew with complex elements, like tagging improperly created tables or correcting errors, they always explained their changes. “Fix and explain; that’s key,” Matthew says. “They were always good about telling me what it was that they did. I didn’t expect them to, but they would fix things and explain specifically the changes they had made.” As a software license holder, having feedback about what errors were made and how they could be fixed would make future remediation projects easier as well.
Equidox solves unique problems
Equidox was also willing to help Matthew’s work pass the various accessibility checkers his clients required. The Equidox team was especially helpful in handling the sheer volume of links within the documents. While normally any link numbering is accessible, one of the checkers required links of this large quantity to be numbered a certain way. When Equidox couldn’t support the large number, the team was able to solve the problem quickly and efficiently. Due to the rare circumstance of the large volume of links, the Equidox development team had to create a custom solution to this issue. The new system passed the checker quickly and easily.
“I was using a few different accessibility checkers to verify my work- Pac 3, Commonlook, and Acrobat. Passing Commonlook was especially important because I knew the client would immediately check the documents via Commonlook to verify compliance. Equidox worked with me on that, even though Equidox is a competitor of Commonlook.”
Whitlock Business Systems was looking for a PDF remediation software that was faster and easier than other solutions. What they got from Equidox was exactly that, plus outstanding training and customer service. Says Matthew, “Because I was dropped into this new thing that I’d never done before, having someone there to help was essential. Everyone was great and helpful and I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Let’s talk!
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