Adobe Presenter 8 and 508 Compliance

[jpleong]

So I am in the middle of work for the US government. The output needs to be 508 compliant to meet Federal regulations. I have been building projects in Presenter 7 and using workarounds to achieve 508 compliance (e.g. printed script/handout in PDF). I have been informed that from here on out, no workarounds will be accepted -the presentation MUST be 508 compliant in the manner that they test. With that in mind, has Presenter 8 improved the accessibility of its output files compared to Presenter 7? JAWS compatibiilty, in particular, is what I need to know. The folks doing my 508 testing use JAWS and it always raises flags with Presenter output.

Before I drop the money to get the latest version of Presenter, I am wondering if things have improved or if I should be looking at another solution?

[Mukul_Adobe]

Hello,

I am Mukul from Adobe Presenter Engg. Team.

Can you tell us what kind of support are you exactly looking for between Presenter 8 and JAWS.

Once we know your exact requirement, we can tell you if Presenter supports it or not.

It will be great if you can provide us examples of how you wish JAWS to work with Presenter.

You can also email me the detail at mvlele@adobe.com

Regards,

Mukul

[jpleong]

Hi Mukul,

Thanks for the prompt reply!

My compliancy checker sent me the following notes (unfortunately, not as specific as I would like):

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html version:

Videos need running timer bar.

Slides just stop; no indication that you need to select "next slide" in the menu.

Not all slides are read by JAWS; rather, it reads around the slide like it isn't there – check coding.

All charts and graphics need alt-tags.

and for the PDF version:

508 Compliancy &JAWS:

JAWS needs to be able to see a flash file, whether it is in a webpage , within a .pdf, or self contained.  The flash movie needs to be “described”   Within Adobe Flash Professional there is an option and the ability to access the “Accessibility Panel.”  But this Digging Deeper Demo.PDF  was developed within Adobe Presenter, and I have yet to create a project with this tool, so I am unsure there is the same “Accessibility Panel.”  If there is not, I would imagine there is something similar to ensure the flash portion of the .PDF is seen by JAWS or any screen reader.

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