[scribus] New for 1.6.0 - Tagged PDF to improve accessibility of PDFs?

[Matthias Schmitt]

Hello,

let me first thank you for participating in this discussion.

> From: "Christoph Schäfer"

> We forget that large proportions of humanity
> are still starving or dying from thirst, on the run from civil wars or
> plagues etc. 

I think this is far beyond the topic of this mailing list. I would like to focus this discussion on how Scribus could improve the information access for disabled users. 

> ... and solve our Western luxury problems later, and
> accessibility of digital documents for blind people is a luxury problem.

NO! Access to public information is a human right! Everything else is pure discrimination! This is what the UN convention is about. 

> I also take exception with your statement "Accessibility
> means 'Design for all' and not 'Design for most'." Design is, by definition,
> something visual, at least if by design we mean graphics or page design.

Why? Every object created by human beings follows a design. Allow me to quote from Wikipedia:

"Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams and sewing patterns). Design has different connotations in different fields. In some cases the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, cowboy coding and graphic design) is also considered to be design."

This leads us to the basic design principle "Form follows function". So what is the function of a document created by Scribus? Its basic function is transfer information. The information can be pure text based or visually pleasing with a nice layout and graphic support. Especially public organisations need to distribute their information to as much people as possible. This is why PDFs distributed by public institutions need to be accessible.

> From: Craig Bradney

> > Tagged PDFs are NOT a showstopper for printed works.
> 
> No they are not, but Scribus should support them, a long with non-Latin
> languages. One day.

I most welcome this kind of thinking. This is all I wanted: adding tagged PDFs to the roadmap, well knowing that this might not be for today or tomorrow. If this could be part of the support of non Latin languages, I welcome this even more.

Best regards

Matthias