docpath-designer-and-the-importance-of-accessibility

Accessibility is the property of objects, sites and activities that allows any person to participate, access or operating them. Nevertheless, accessibility should not only be physical, but also every company should be able to communicate with their customers regardless of the reading and comprehension capabilities from each one.

An Accessible Electronic Document will be the one that is equipped with the necessary tools to present its content to the biggest number of people. This way, DocPath, with the latest version of Designer, has incorporated functionalities to create documents meeting these characteristics.

 

Madrid, 22th December 2022 – DocPath Designer is a powerful form-based document design tool that allows its users to create any sort of document dynamically, keeping the image of the company. For more than three decades, DocPath has been developing different functionalities and improving upon our document software product with the intention of providing an adapted communication to each individual, removing all possible barriers that could impede it.

For this reason, DocPath has been working not only on adding new design features for the last few years, but also but also in allowing to establish logical structures so that any PDF reader with integrated voice (or screen readers) will be able to interpret these documents.

As a result, people who have difficulties reading a computer screen will be able to receive information by listening.

The fact is that we should not overlook all those people who cannot enjoy the facilities provided by computers when communicating with other individuals or entities. Therefore, many countries are establishing regulations in the business world to bring light into this sector, requiring the practice of creating accessible PDFs.

Laws such as Section 508, in the USA, the 2018 Accessibility Regulations (for Public Sector Bodies), in the UK, or UNE-EN 301-549:2018-08 in Europe, indicate that all government and/or public service bodies must include accessibility in their documents and web portals. Other laws, as the CRPD, are decreed by the UN and compulsory for everyone, so it will be a matter of time before all companies start demanding accessible PDFs.

To provide this functionality, DocPath incorporates in Designer the so-called PDF tagging (or tagged PDF). This feature allows to indicate the logical structure of the document through the use of tags, indicating to screen readers the sequence of the different parts that compose the document and whether they are a header, a title, a paragraph, a footer, a list, a table, etc. By doing so, a tree representing the structure of the document and its different visual objects is created.

To sum up, the new version of Designer allows the addition of descriptions to objects, specifying the document enumeration order dealing with different points, indicating whether it is a list, establishing the logical structure for reading a table with data and other functionalities to create PDFs that are fully accessible for reading. Consequently, it facilitates structured accessibility to electronic documents in PDF format for people.

Besides, the option to build different “layers” to generate documents from the forms in multiple languages is included, stored in a central repository, which includes the versioning of the documents, allowing them to be easily read in their respective language by any PDF reader.

 

See more details about the Designer forms design solution.

 

About DocPath

DocPath is a leading enterprise document software company that offers its international customers the technology that allows them to complement their ERP and implement advanced Document Output Management, Customer Communications Management and document software pooling processes.

Founded in 1993, DocPath is based in Europe, USA and Latin America and is present with its Solutions in companies around the world. Among its customers there are prestigious banks and top-tier corporations, facilitating the difficult and complex task of designing, generating and distributing their business-critical documents. DocPath keeps a strong commitment to R+D+i, an area to which it allocates a large part of its revenues, and in which lies one of the keys to its success.

For more information, visit: www.docpath.com.

Legal Notice: DocPath is a registered trademark of DocPath Document Solutions. All rights reserved. Other trademarks mentioned herein might be the property of their respective owners.

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