Accessibility Ambassadors: Remediating PDFs or choosing the right alternative formats
PDF accessibility is the most requested topic for Accessibility Ambassadors. In this month’s session, presenters from different sectors of the University of Minnesota will share their strategies for working with these complex files.
First, Shane Nackerud and Laura Vavrosky will demonstrate how the UMD and UMTC Libraries make scanned PDFs accessible using Adobe Acrobat Pro (University-wide software) and PREP (paid remediation software). Attendees will learn multiple options for how to remediate PDFs that have no born-digital equivalent.
In the second section, Neal Sorensen will discuss how PDFs have been a mainstay in digital documents for 20 years and why that is. In his talk he will explore what a PDF is, what it's good and bad at, and what accessible alternatives there are.
This session is intended for anyone responsible for remediating PDFs, but largely staff and faculty.
Remediating PDFs or choosing the right alternative formats
Thursday, February 26, noon - 1 p.m.
Registration for this session is required. Let us know if you are attending. UMN employees are able to earn 200 Wellbeing Points for attending. Please indicate your interest in receiving points during registration, and a voucher code will be emailed to you after the event.
By default, we enable auto-captioning in the webinar. Please let us know what additional accommodations we can provide. Two weeks’ notice (February 12) at z.umn.edu/a11y-zoom2 will help us to better fulfill requests. This session will be recorded, captioned, and shared with the Google Group.
About the Presenters
Shane Nackerud is the director of Affordable Learning and Open Education (ALOE) at the University Libraries, Twin Cities. The ALOE department works with instructors to integrate affordable and accessible course materials such as library content, lawful claims of fair use, and open educational resources into University course curricula.
Laura Vavrosky works in the Archives at the Kathryn A. Martin Library at UMD. She manages digitization projects, handles thousands of scanned PDFs, and has been implementing and advocating for digital accessibility workflows since 2019.
Neal Sorensen is a new addition to the Office of Digital Accessibility, coming to the University from a 16-year career in disability accommodations and digital accessibility work. As a dyslexic person, Neal practices what they teach and is a passionate advocate for reading disability literacy and public art.
About Accessibility Ambassadors
Accessibility Ambassadors is a group of University employees from across all campuses who are passionate about making U of M digital resources more accessible online. They bring different skills, strengths, and backgrounds, but all want to create an inclusive and accessible community at the U of M.
They host events to teach, advocate, and discuss digital accessibility topics and strive to be resources for the University community.
To learn about more accessibility-related events at the University of Minnesota, please visit the Office for Digital Accessibility website.
For more information about the Ambassadors, join the Google Group or send an email to: [email protected].