1 00:00:11,204 --> 00:00:14,240 [Dan Tuleta] Okay, well, my  clock is showing two o'clock,   2 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:19,000 so I think it's a good time to get started.  welcome, everyone. My name is Dan Tuleta. I'm   3 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:24,240 the Senior Sales Engineer here over at Equidox. I  appreciate everyone joining us today for another   4 00:00:24,240 --> 00:00:29,200 edition of our Equidox Webinar Wednesdays. Today, we're going to be talking about   5 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:34,960 mastering PDF accessibility, so let's get  into it. just quickly through the agenda   6 00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:38,960 here of what we're going to be covering today  during the webinar. First, we'll obviously   7 00:00:38,960 --> 00:00:44,760 introduce who we are as Equidox. Then we'll talk  a little bit about why we make PDFs accessible,   8 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:50,160 how to put together a plan for PDF accessibility,  and then some of the actual mechanics of the   9 00:00:50,160 --> 00:00:55,960 PDF remediation workflow. And then I'll be  finishing things off with an Equidox demo.  10 00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:00,760 So, anyone that has never seen our software  in action before, you'll be able to get a   11 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:06,360 peek at kind of what Equidox looks like from a  document remediation workflow perspective. So   12 00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:11,880 it's a little bit different and obviously better  and faster than Adobe Acrobat for, for a similar   13 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:18,240 process of making PDF documents accessible. Okay, so first and foremost, Equidox Software   14 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:23,560 Company. Our mission statement is to enable  PDF accessibility through intelligent automated   15 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:30,120 solutions. We are an accessibility company  with a niche in the PDF document space,   16 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:35,360 so we are a leader in PDF accessibility.  We're probably most known for our flagship   17 00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:41,440 Equidox Software as a service, so it's a web-based  application for making PDF documents accessible.  18 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:46,760 We also offer an AI solution for specific types  of use cases, which we're not going to really   19 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:53,320 get into in this, webinar. But, if you have any  use cases in mind where you have high volume,   20 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:59,080 sort of repetitive types of documents that follow  a similar formatting and structure, please let us   21 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:05,280 know. We definitely would love to chat with you  about that if you have any use cases in mind.  22 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:10,880 Okay, so let's talk about some of the market  challenges. PDFs are really one of the most   23 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:16,120 difficult document types to make compliant with  the Americans with Disabilities Act and all the   24 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:21,480 standards that fall under it—Section  508 and WCAG guidelines. Equidox makes   25 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:28,240 PDF accessibility easier and faster. We also put a real emphasis on quality   26 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:34,120 because Equidox is much easier to use than  a competitive tool like Adobe Acrobat. It   27 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:40,240 allows you to get through a larger volume  of pages and documents. It's easier to use,   28 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:45,800 so you can put the power of the tool into a much  larger group of users. You no longer have to silo   29 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:51,440 this to just a handful of resident experts in your  organization. You can really have everyone being   30 00:02:51,440 --> 00:02:57,280 more responsible for the content that they create. Because you can go faster and you can deploy it to   31 00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:03,280 a broader group of users, it really allows you to  put more of an emphasis on the quality. One of the   32 00:03:03,280 --> 00:03:08,680 problems with PDFs is that organizations have so  many of them because they're being produced on a   33 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,840 daily basis, and in many cases, they've been being  produced for decades. Really, no one has ever   34 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:19,040 addressed it from an accessibility standpoint. There are massive backlogs of documents on top   35 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:23,960 of the documents that are being produced  on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis.   36 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:30,200 It's overwhelming for organizations, and that  leads them to having to outsource it overseas,   37 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:35,640 where you get very sloppy work that's being done  to just make it pass a checker. In some cases,   38 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:40,280 if you're doing it internally, people just  end up having to cut corners because they're   39 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:44,640 simply overwhelmed with the volume of content  that they have to work through. They don't   40 00:03:44,640 --> 00:03:48,920 have the manpower; they don't have the  time in the day to work through all of   41 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:53,800 the backlogs and all of the constant flow of  documents that are coming across their desks.  42 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,240 Our ease of use and the speed that Equidox allows  you to remediate at allow you to really put an   43 00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:03,680 emphasis on the quality to make sure that all  of the documents that you are publishing and   44 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:09,640 putting in a public-facing place on your website  or in any other sort of applications or LMS or   45 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:13,440 content management systems, you're always  going to be able to make sure that those   46 00:04:13,440 --> 00:04:21,240 documents are not only compliant but also usable  for people that are using assistive technologies.  47 00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:26,280 So, why do we make PDFs accessible?  Well, mainly you have to. It's part   48 00:04:26,280 --> 00:04:31,680 of the Americans with Disabilities Act and  Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Now,   49 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:38,120 I'm not personally a lawyer, so I'm not going to  explain all of the little finite details of the,   50 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:42,560 minute details of the, of the laws. But  we do have links in here that you're able   51 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:46,800 to access if you'd like to read up on these  different standards and guidelines and things   52 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:54,680 that you should be doing around PDF documents. So recently, there was a final ruling on digital   53 00:04:54,680 --> 00:05:03,360 accessibility in 2024 under Title II of the ADA,  and it mandated that WCAG 2.1 AA standards must be   54 00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:09,560 met for web content and mobile applications.  This, of course, includes the PDF documents   55 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:15,720 that are on your websites and applications. So, education institutions as well as state and   56 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:21,600 local governments both fall under Title 2. so it  really is something that you have to be aware of,   57 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:27,200 and you have to start managing, and make  sure you have a plan in place. There are   58 00:05:27,200 --> 00:05:32,000 certain exceptions, just to mention  that underneath the Title II ruling,   59 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:38,280 there are certain exceptions. but in most  instances, PDFs still need to be made accessible.  60 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:44,200 So, a general rule of thumb is that if the PDF  document is still actively in use or relevant to   61 00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:49,880 people, if it's on your public-facing website,  it likely needs to be made accessible. So,   62 00:05:49,880 --> 00:05:55,520 don't just assume that the exceptions always  apply to you because, in general, they will not.  63 00:05:55,520 --> 00:06:00,440 Um, and the DOJ provided a fact sheet citing  some of these examples where exceptions do not   64 00:06:00,440 --> 00:06:07,720 apply. And here will be a link for the, for  all of those exceptions within that ruling.  65 00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:13,000 So just, to help quantify the situation,  Equidox, in cooperation with the National   66 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:18,840 Federation of the Blind, we did a survey  with, several hundred blind and low-vision,   67 00:06:18,840 --> 00:06:25,320 people that use assistive technology on a  day-to-day basis and what their experiences,   68 00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:31,200 are. What their experiences have told us is that  at least two out of three PDFs are not accessible.  69 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:35,600 So, 67% of documents that are floating  around on the web that are in, you know,   70 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:41,800 active daily circulation are not accessible. So,  it presents a huge challenge to people that rely   71 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:46,760 on assistive technology, that are trying to  interact with those documents and extract the   72 00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:52,560 same data that a sighted user would be able to. Um, but they simply cannot, they cannot have   73 00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:57,080 that same experience because the documents  are not accessible, they're not compliant,   74 00:06:57,080 --> 00:07:03,080 and they're not compatible with their assistive  technology. So, therefore, they are left to find   75 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:09,360 alternative ways to get that information,  which leads to all kinds of challenges.  76 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:14,920 Okay, so let's talk about creating a plan for  how we go about attacking PDF accessibility.   77 00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:18,440 so there's definitely, you know, somewhat  of an order of operations. Now, this can   78 00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:22,360 vary from organization to organization, and you  know, depending on the size of your organization,   79 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:29,600 depending on the size of the PDF problems that you  have, this can obviously, vary from org to org.  80 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:35,080 So, this is not exactly like a rigid  set of eight things that you must do,   81 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:40,280 but in general, a good order of operations  would be to assign a staff. You obviously need   82 00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:45,040 personnel to help you address this problem. Um, you want to evaluate the scope. So,   83 00:07:45,040 --> 00:07:50,680 how big is this problem? Do we have documents  that are 30 years old that we can, you know,   84 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:55,400 archive and just completely wipe off of the  website? Or do we have documents that always   85 00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:59,160 need to be posted online, and there's really  no way that we could ever get rid of them?  86 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:03,000 Uh, are we talking about a couple of hundred  documents, a couple of thousand documents,   87 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:07,680 even tens of thousands or millions of  documents in some extreme examples? So,   88 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:11,600 understanding how large of a problem this  really is, is a good thing to do after you've   89 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:16,600 assigned a staff to help you evaluate that. Putting a written plan in place is always a   90 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:21,440 good thing to do. It's always good to show that  you, as an organization, are making a commitment   91 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:26,840 to this plan to address PDF accessibility. So,  getting that written plan and distributing it   92 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:31,560 within your organization, and, and start holding  people, you know, responsible and making sure   93 00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:36,400 that everyone is following along with this plan. The next thing you want to do is prioritize the   94 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:40,960 documents. and I'll talk a little bit about that  on the next slide. but you know, it's important   95 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:44,280 to make sure that you're addressing, you know,  the most important things first and then the   96 00:08:44,280 --> 00:08:49,320 least important things last. So, we'll talk a  little bit more about that on the next slide.  97 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:55,840 Um, you, of course, will want to choose a tool or  a vendor. so some organizations, depending on the   98 00:08:55,840 --> 00:09:01,080 situation and all of the variables, they might  choose to outsource PDF remediation to a third   99 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:07,960 party. So, hiring a company to do it for you. Um, that has its advantages and disadvantages,   100 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:13,320 but that's one method of going. then you  can also, of course, choose a tool. So,   101 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:18,920 there are different PDF remediation tools out  there, the primary one being Adobe Acrobat.  102 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:25,240 So, Acrobat is kind of synonymous with PDFs;  it's what the majority of people rely on. but   103 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:29,480 there are alternatives, which we'll get into that  as well. Here we are in an Equidox webinar, so,   104 00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:34,080 of course, we'll talk a little bit  about an alternative tool for this.  105 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:38,160 Then, of course, you need to remediate the  documents, which we'll talk more about,   106 00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:43,040 and I'll show you how we go about remediating  PDFs. Then, of course, validate the documents,   107 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:47,760 just making sure that everything that you  did during that remediation process is   108 00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:54,200 truly making the document compliant and usable. And then, of course, everything takes constant   109 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:59,480 maintenance, right? It's not like you just  get accessible and you're done forever. As   110 00:09:59,480 --> 00:10:03,800 that website, as your applications,  as your documents evolve over time,   111 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:08,080 there's constantly new iterations of different  things that are going up onto the website.  112 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:12,440 So, you just want to make sure that once you've  gotten yourself caught up as an organization,   113 00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:16,520 that you stay caught up. Don't get behind  the eight ball again. It requires that   114 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:21,760 constant maintenance to make sure that  you are, in fact, staying compliant.  115 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:27,520 Okay, so addressing PDF remediation projects.  one thing that's a good, you know, first step,   116 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:32,600 kind of, is to remove the outdated or  unnecessary files to help shrink down   117 00:10:32,600 --> 00:10:38,320 that pile of documents that you need to remediate. You know, we've helped organizations, you know,   118 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:42,880 do some, like, sort of evaluation of their  documents in the past, and it's pretty interesting   119 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:48,920 what you'll find floating around on websites. You might have, a, you know, an invitation to   120 00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:55,280 the company picnic from 1998 still posted on  the website or something like that. Do these   121 00:10:55,280 --> 00:11:00,480 types of documents really need to, like, still  be living online? You know, old newsletters,   122 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:05,000 old memos that are completely obsolete. Um, there's a good chance that you have   123 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:12,320 many documents that are sitting on your website  presenting a compliance, sort of, issue for,   124 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:17,160 you know, litigation, future litigation, that  doesn't actually need to be posted online anymore.   125 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:21,480 So, it's a good thing to just kind of evaluate  your site and everything that's posted publicly   126 00:11:21,480 --> 00:11:28,360 and remove the stuff that's not necessary. Uh, you also want to, evaluate the number of PDFs   127 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:32,200 that need to be remediated and their complexity.  So, that's a good thing to kind of understand,   128 00:11:32,200 --> 00:11:37,200 like, how complicated are these documents to  remediate? Is it just simple text on a page?  129 00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:43,520 Uh, are there more, more, more challenging  documents like fillable forms? Do we have OCR   130 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:47,720 content, stuff that is just, like,  scanned in and turned into a PDF?  131 00:11:47,720 --> 00:11:51,640 Um, and then also decide what will be done  in-house and what will be outsourced. So,   132 00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:55,760 if you do decide to go with, like, a mixed  approach of outsourcing some and doing some   133 00:11:55,760 --> 00:12:00,920 in-house or vice versa, you can, you know,  make sure that you have your handle around,   134 00:12:00,920 --> 00:12:08,000 like, what exactly you want to ship out overseas  versus what you would like to just keep in-house.  135 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,960 Okay, and I also mentioned we would talk a little  bit about how to go about prioritizing documents.  136 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:15,520 Um, just at a high level, our general  recommendation would be to start with   137 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:21,720 the content that is the most frequently used.  So, if you have, let's say, a document that is,   138 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:26,480 like, just front and center on your website, that  when someone comes to your website, there's a good   139 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:30,360 chance they're going to open that document up. Um, you really want to make sure that that PDF   140 00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:33,680 is made accessible because that's going  to impact the most amount of people.  141 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:38,560 Um, the most recent content. So, if the stuff  that's the newest, the latest and greatest,   142 00:12:38,560 --> 00:12:42,280 you, of course, want to put that as kind  of, like, a high-priority document to,   143 00:12:42,280 --> 00:12:46,600 to make accessible because it's the  most up-to-date content on your site.  144 00:12:46,600 --> 00:12:51,920 And then from there, you would probably work  towards the lowest complexity. So, what I mean   145 00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:57,320 by that is the easiest stuff to remediate. The reason I would, I would put that rather,   146 00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:01,240 like, as the third element on the list here,  in, of, like, putting it towards the end is,   147 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:06,400 because you, you want to be able to get  through the largest amount of pages possible,   148 00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:10,080 in the shortest amount of time because  that, again, is going to be more impactful.  149 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:16,560 And then everything else, that would be your old  documents, your really, your really complicated   150 00:13:16,560 --> 00:13:21,960 documents that are going to be more time-consuming  to remediate. I would put those towards the end   151 00:13:21,960 --> 00:13:26,200 because those are probably going to have  the least impact on the majority of people.  152 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:30,680 So, that's kind of our general, like,  recommendation for how you go about approaching   153 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:35,520 this. but of course, there's always, you know,  variables that, that come into play for every   154 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:41,480 unique organization. So, this is not exactly,  like, the, a rigid set of rules, but this is our   155 00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:49,000 general recommendation and a good place to start  when you're evaluating the scope of your project.  156 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:52,760 Okay, so when I go through the actual  demonstration today, you're going to   157 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:59,200 hear me talk a lot about, a lot about tags. Um, and just if anyone is not aware of what tags   158 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:06,480 are or how they work, all elements on a page  require a digital identifier known as a tag,   159 00:14:06,480 --> 00:14:11,680 to be read by assistive technology. So, different elements on different PDFs are   160 00:14:11,680 --> 00:14:17,160 going to be tagged in different ways. Some of the  primary tags that you'll see a lot of are things   161 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:26,160 like text, images, headings, links, lists, tables,  and of course, the reading order of all of the   162 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:32,000 content on the page is very important as well. So, so these different tags are a way of   163 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:37,240 organizing the information on the page to make  sure that the screen reader is going to navigate   164 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:45,560 this document and read the content in the same  way that a sighted user would read this page.  165 00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:51,080 So, there are some general pre-flight document  observations that are good to take into account.  166 00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:55,880 Um, first of all, how many pages are there in  this document? Is it a simple one-page document,   167 00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:00,440 or is it a 500-page textbook? there's a  difference in how you might go about approaching   168 00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:07,760 that document project depending on the size of it. How complex is it? Is it a very difficult fillable   169 00:15:07,760 --> 00:15:13,680 form with 500, text input fields that need to  have tooltips written for them, or is it a simple,   170 00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:18,600 just a couple of paragraphs on the page where  it's very simple to, to go about tagging?  171 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:22,120 Is the design and the formatting of  the document consistent throughout,   172 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:26,200 or is it some sort of, like, Frankenstein  document which was, you know, brought together   173 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:30,880 from three different sources and it was all  just strung together as one PDF document?  174 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:35,480 Uh, is there existing tag structure? So, if  the tags are there, are they worth keeping,   175 00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:40,040 or are they tags that really you ought  to just get rid of and, and kind of throw   176 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:45,000 away and start over from scratch? It's always  case by case with PDFs. You don't always know.  177 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:51,200 Uh, does the document require OCR? So, OCR stands  for Optical Character Recognition. What that means   178 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:56,560 is, is the document just an image? And that might  be common if you have, like, a scanned document,   179 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:03,120 for example. Not all PDFs are created equally.  Sometimes a PDF is simply just a scan of a page.  180 00:16:03,120 --> 00:16:08,360 So, as far as a machine is concerned, it's just an  image, and within that image, there might be text   181 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:14,280 that's readable to a sighted person, but you need  to use a process called OCR to extract that text   182 00:16:14,280 --> 00:16:21,160 from the image so that it's actually readable and  usable by someone that's using a screen reader.  183 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:25,920 Um, are there form fields? So, fillable forms,  they take a little bit of extra work and, and sort   184 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:31,760 of, you know, TLC to make accessible. that's just  the nature of a fillable form. But, understanding   185 00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:37,200 if the document is a form or just a standard,  like, plain PDF is, is important to know.  186 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:41,760 And also, are there images? Are the images  informative and, like, technical? You know,   187 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:47,120 do you have diagrams and charts and things that  are providing, like, technical information about   188 00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:52,720 the document, or are they just decorative? You know, is it just repetitive logos? Is it,   189 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:58,880 just, you know, black and blue and red background  colors that are just there in the form of an   190 00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:03,000 image, but it's really just there for, like,  the visual aesthetics of the document? It's,   191 00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:06,880 again, always case by case, and these are  things to kind of take into consideration   192 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:12,720 when you're looking at a document that you're  about to, about to go through the remediation of.  193 00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:17,360 Um, and then the workflow for PDF remediation. Uh, in general, I would recommend tagging all   194 00:17:17,360 --> 00:17:21,280 of the text. as a general rule of  thumb, there are certain exceptions   195 00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:25,600 to that, but tag all of the text. Set all of the headings. so there   196 00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:29,240 can only be one heading level one, for example,  and we'll talk a little bit more about heading   197 00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:36,560 structure when we get into the demonstration. Add alt text to the images and artifact that,   198 00:17:36,560 --> 00:17:40,320 any of the images that are not needed. So,  again, using, like, the example of, like,   199 00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:45,280 repetitive logos or just, you know, background  colors that are there for decoration purposes,   200 00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:50,440 if those are images in the document, you can  artifact them so that the screen reader does   201 00:17:50,440 --> 00:17:55,000 not have to read them, especially when  it's something that's just repetitive.  202 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,440 Uh, tagging the lists, tagging the tables,  making sure that all of the hyperlinks are   203 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:05,920 going to be going to the correct URL or the  correct destination wherever they're bound for.  204 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,400 Uh, set the reading order for  each page. That's, of course,   205 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:13,120 critical. Even if the tags are accurate,  the tags must be read in the correct order,   206 00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:18,520 or else it can render the entire page useless. Imagine a three-column article where the screen   207 00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:22,400 reader is just reading clear across the  three columns. So, you're going to hear   208 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:28,080 just a bunch of fragmented sentences and  words that together will not make any sense.  209 00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:31,840 So, even if the tags are in the proper  spot, it would render the entire page   210 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:36,600 useless because it's all being read out of order. Uh, and then, of course, validate your work, and   211 00:18:36,600 --> 00:18:41,840 we'll talk a little bit more on how to do that. And we're actually linking to a workflow blog,   212 00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:46,600 in this slide deck, which we will share  out with you after the presentation.  213 00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,120 Okay, so here is the slide that  we've arrived at where we will   214 00:18:50,120 --> 00:18:55,920 embed the link to this demonstration. Uh, but I will jump out of here, out of my   215 00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:02,520 PowerPoint, and I will jump into Equidox. So, here I am inside of Equidox, and,   216 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:07,480 just at a high level here, we have the  Equidox. We're operating in a browser,   217 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:12,840 so it's, something to mention that Equidox is not  a software that you need to install or update or   218 00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:18,040 dedicate a license to on any individual machine. You can truly work from anywhere as long as   219 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:23,320 you have an internet connection. and we also  work with a concurrent user licensing model,   220 00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,520 so it's important to understand,  like, kind of how the licensing works.  221 00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:31,680 Let's just say your organization has  10 concurrent users. That means any   222 00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:38,160 10 people within your organization could use  Equidox simultaneously. Maybe you have 20 or   223 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:43,920 30 or 50 people that can access Equidox;  it's just a matter of only 10 at a time.  224 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:50,280 So, you can deploy it to a much bigger group  of users without having to dedicate an annual   225 00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:56,800 subscription to every potential user who might  only need to log in for 10 minutes once a week.  226 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:01,000 Um, so just something to consider. It's  a different approach than, than how we're   227 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:05,960 doing things, like with Adobe Acrobat, where  every person needs to have a license of that   228 00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:10,600 software installed on their individual computer. And if you don't have that license installed,   229 00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:14,720 then you just can't use Acrobat. Okay, so what I'll do here is   230 00:20:14,720 --> 00:20:18,280 I'm going to go into this document. I  imported it just before we got started.  231 00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:23,240 Um, I'm going to use this just to kind of walk  through, like, the basics of document remediation.  232 00:20:23,240 --> 00:20:29,080 Um, inside of the document here, I can see that  I have a thumbnail for the one single page,   233 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:33,920 and if I click on that thumbnail, it  will take me into the remediation page.  234 00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,840 And inside of the remediation  page here, the first thing   235 00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:43,520 that I'm struck by are these yellow rectangles. And so, these yellow rectangles that I have here,   236 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,320 what they are representing  are essentially the tags.  237 00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:52,000 So, just so everyone is aware, this document  was completely untagged to begin with.  238 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,800 So, if I were to open this up  inside of, like, Adobe Acrobat,   239 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:58,720 it's a completely untagged document. That means a screen reader wouldn't know what   240 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:03,480 to do with any of this information on this page. It's not accessible in any way, shape,   241 00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:08,680 or form because it's completely untagged. Now, when I imported it into Equidox,   242 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:13,640 Equidox is smart enough to recognize that  there's a bunch of content on this page,   243 00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:18,760 and it is putting these reading zones into the  places where it thinks makes the most sense.  244 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:23,880 So, it's effectively, like, auto-tagging  it just by importing the document.  245 00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:28,640 However, we would say that you need to take  it much further than just auto-tagging it   246 00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:34,960 because every PDF document is unique, right? Like, so this PDF document is different than   247 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,400 the next one that I'm going to  work on and the one after that.  248 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:41,160 So, it's not just like a universal  set of rules that we can just apply   249 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:46,800 an auto-tagging process to and hope for the best. There's always nuance and details that we need to   250 00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:52,000 consider in each individual PDF document. So, we don't want to just import and   251 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,080 export and cross our fingers and  hope that it worked perfectly.  252 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,960 We definitely need to go through this  document and make sure that all of the   253 00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:02,480 different elements are accounted for. Now, one button that's really important   254 00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:07,360 inside of Equidox is this button right here,  which looks kind of like a computer monitor.  255 00:22:07,360 --> 00:22:12,160 When you press this button, it will open up  a separate tab in your browser, and in this   256 00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:18,400 browser preview, you can see an HTML rendering  of the page that you are currently working on.  257 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:25,000 Now, the reason that this HTML is really useful  is because this is essentially a representation   258 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:29,880 of how a screen reader would read this  page if we were to just stop working on   259 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:34,000 it and export it as it currently sits. So, it doesn't really take much of a   260 00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,520 trained eye to see that there are  some pretty glaring issues here.  261 00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:40,200 Sure, like, most of the paragraphs  and everything are going to be   262 00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:44,880 read out loud, and that's perfectly fine. But we have images that we need to address.  263 00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:48,720 We have a list right here that's  currently not set up as a list at all.  264 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,960 This is supposedly our table, so you  can see, like, what a mess the table is.  265 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:57,320 All of that data has no structure to it. You would be just giving a screen reader   266 00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:01,480 user a bunch of random numbers that  would make no sense whatsoever.  267 00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,560 So, we need to make sure that we're  addressing these types of issues.  268 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:09,160 Now, if I go back to the PDF, just to call  out another important feature within Equidox,   269 00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,480 and it's a feature that I actually don't  really need to use on this document,   270 00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:17,880 but it's this sensitivity slider. When I move this slider back and forth,   271 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:23,160 left and right, you'll see how these yellow  rectangles kind of, like, rearrange themselves.  272 00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:28,800 And you can use that slider to kind of choose  your best possible starting point, which I really   273 00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,720 already had when I arrived at the page. But if you want to move this around and   274 00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:37,960 see if it can do any better, it just gives you  a chance to see if there's, like, a more optimal   275 00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:43,160 place to begin your work from where you'll have  less work to do with the individual elements.  276 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:47,440 So, just for example, like, if you were to  bring this way over to the right, it takes   277 00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:52,200 kind of like a 10,000-foot view of the page. And if you were to then go to your preview,   278 00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:56,040 you'll see, like, it's kind of a problem here. This is, like, the wrong end of the spectrum.  279 00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:01,320 We don't want all of those zones to just  be grouped together as one giant paragraph   280 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,120 because that's equally as incorrect, just,  you know, on the other end of the spectrum.  281 00:24:05,120 --> 00:24:09,000 And then, alternatively, if you bring it all  the way down to zero, all of that content   282 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:13,120 is going to be removed from the preview,  and you're just left with the two images.  283 00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:16,680 So, again, you really just want to find  kind of that sweet spot in the middle of   284 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:21,600 the page where everything is going to  give you a nice clean starting point.  285 00:24:21,600 --> 00:26:28,440 Um, we Inox can reduce that to, I don't know,  how long does it take to hit L and nudge   286 00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:34,560 the slider? Maybe 5 seconds. So you can imagine  how much, time you would save, you know,   287 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:39,600 over the course of just even one document. Um, you know, you're saving yourself probably   288 00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:44,960 close to 15 minutes on this list right here. So you can see again that you have, like,   289 00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:50,520 the exact same structure in this  list as you do from the PDF itself.  290 00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:54,920 This element here is our table, which right  now is kind of a mess. You can probably tell   291 00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:59,440 we don't want individual zones covering up  all of the different cells. That's what leads   292 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,800 us to this terrible-looking structure here,  where it's just a bunch of random numbers.  293 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,680 But we can, of course, fix that. So what I'm going to do is I'm just   294 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:11,240 going to put a zone right on top of that  entire table by clicking and dragging.  295 00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:18,520 And then, if I hit T on my keyboard — T for table  — I can then double-click on the table zone.  296 00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:24,480 And if I then look at just the table, now  isolating it inside of the table editor,   297 00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:28,680 I can see these green grid lines here, which  you're free to drag around if you like.  298 00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,640 But you can also use the table detector. So you're probably seeing the theme here   299 00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:37,680 of these very easy-to-use sliders. When you  just nudge the sliders from left to right,   300 00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:41,440 it will wake up the artificial intelligence,  and you can probably tell that these green   301 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:48,640 grid lines are now in the perfect locations. So everything is in line with its row and column.  302 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,720 If I go to the preview just after  making that quick change, you'll see   303 00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:57,320 we've made a pretty dramatic difference. Instead of having whatever all this is,   304 00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,760 we actually have something that  looks very similar to a table.  305 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:05,640 I do have two little things that I need to  correct, though, mainly the column headers here.  306 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:13,320 If I just hold Shift on my keyboard while I select  the cells, I can span across all of those cells.  307 00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:18,120 That way, I'm not duplicating numbers,  and I'm making sure that 23 and 24   308 00:28:18,120 --> 00:28:23,040 actually straddle the four sub-columns  that they are the column header for.  309 00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,200 And also, this table has two  levels of column headers,   310 00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:32,280 so I just want to hit my up arrow over here to  change the default one column header to two.  311 00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:37,040 And if I were to go back to my preview,  what I'll find is now the second row,   312 00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:43,400 which is represented by that bold font, is  also going to be tagged as a table header.  313 00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:47,840 So all I have to do is save  the table and close out of it.  314 00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:52,520 And all of those individual zones that I had  before have been overridden by the table,   315 00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:57,280 so now I have just a single  table zone on top of everything.  316 00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:03,600 All of the little individual things were removed  that I had there before, the individual TCH zones.  317 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,760 The images, not to spend too much time on  these because these images are very simple.  318 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,760 Just for this Equidox logo, I'm simply  going to just call it the Equidox logo   319 00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:16,240 over here in the alt description field. And this is just really a similar rendering   320 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,560 of that logo, but it has a dog in the picture. I would argue that this is just a decorative   321 00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:23,320 image, you know, it's there  to just kind of take up space.  322 00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:28,920 So if I just simply hit, I can hit backspace  on my keyboard to get rid of that image.  323 00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:35,600 So you can see the zone itself disappears, and if  you go to the HTML preview again, you'll see that   324 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:41,160 now we've kind of cleaned things up quite a bit. One thing that I'm noticing is that my footer   325 00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:47,720 has somehow jumped in front of my table. The reason why is when I added that table zone,   326 00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:54,760 it just naturally became the last zone on the  page, which is what this little number indicates.  327 00:29:54,760 --> 00:30:02,080 So if I hit reorder and refresh the preview,  you'll see now I have my table in the proper spot,   328 00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:07,320 and the footer comes at the very bottom. And so, just reordering the page, it will by   329 00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:12,680 default reorder it in a top-to-bottom way. You also have different options for   330 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:17,440 multiple-column layouts as well, so it just  depends on what the page is calling for.  331 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:23,760 So now this document is fully accessible,  it's fully readable, it's fully compliant.  332 00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:28,200 All I would need to do is go to the  export tab and hit generate PDF,   333 00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:33,160 and it will produce this brand new document for  me, which is going to be fully tagged from start   334 00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:40,480 to finish, just like I saw in my HTML preview. And if I were to open this up in my Acrobat   335 00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:49,000 application, I'll be able to show  you the tags if Acrobat will wake up.  336 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:54,920 Of course, it will sleep on  me. Let's download it, I guess.  337 00:30:54,920 --> 00:31:03,440 So this is the new one that I just created,  and you can see this document is fully tagged.  338 00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:08,600 Alright, so, excuse me, wrong  X, want to hit this one.  339 00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:12,440 So back to the slide deck, I'm  going to, we'll just wrap things   340 00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:17,240 up here just in the interest of time. Let's see, we are on this one here.  341 00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:22,440 So we have, we have a few links to relevant  articles here, just kind of more information,   342 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,360 more in-depth stuff based on  what we were talking about here.  343 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,480 And, that's going to conclude  our webinar for today.  344 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,760 So again, we are Equidox. You can reach out to us at   345 00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:36,280 EquidoxSales@Equidox.co; that's  just like a general sales email   346 00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:43,200 address if you'd like to reach out. Our phone number is 216-529-3030.  347 00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:55,960 Of course, you can find us at www.Equidox.co,  Facebook, any of your preferred platforms.  348 00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,160 And we are always happy to take individual calls  if you'd like to just reach out and have a deeper   349 00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:05,680 discussion about your specific needs around PDF  remediation or to see a more personalized demo,   350 00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:09,600 even using your own documents. We'd be happy to accommodate that,   351 00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,120 so please don't hesitate to reach out. So thank you very much, everyone. Have   352 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:18,680 a great rest of your Wednesday afternoon. For more information about how Equidox Software   353 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:25,280 Company can help you with PDF accessibility,  email us at EquidoxSales@Equidox.co,   354 00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:34,080 or give us a call at 216-529-3030 or  visit our website at www.Equidox.co.