Comparison of the effectiveness of different accessibility plugins based on important accessibility criteria

Abstract

This paper compares two new freely available software plugins for MS PowerPoint and Word documents that we have developed at the ZHAW with similar tools with respect to important accessibility criteria. Our plugins [1, 2, 3] allow the analysis of accessibility issues and consequently the generation of fully accessible PDF documents. The document authors using these plugins require no specific accessibility knowledge. The plugins are based on a flexible software architecture concept [1] that allows the automatic generation of fully accessible PDF documents originating from various authoring tools, such as Adobe InDesign [5], Word or PowerPoint [6, 7]. Other available plugins, on the other hand, need accessibility knowledge in order to use them properly and effectively. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.