In this video, we will demonstrate how to export a DevExpress report to an accessible PDF document.
We will use our Invoice demo report as an example and will work in the WinForms End User Report Designer.
To export a report to PDF format, let's click the Export To button and choose PDF File.
In the invoked dialog, you can use the PDF/A and PDF/UA compatibility options
to specify the standard to which the exported document should conform.
When you choose the PDF/A-1a, PDF/A-2a, PDF/A-3a
or PDF/UA standards, the PDF export engine generates a so-called tagged PDF document.
In such document, each report element corresponds to a tag, and all the tags form a tree.
Later in this video we will show you how this tree looks.
Screen readers can vocalize these tags in the order that the tree defines.
So, PDF documents that conform to the mentioned standards become accessible for people with disabilities
for example for visually impaired individuals.
As an example, let's export our report to a PDF document that conforms to the PDF/UA standard.
Next, let's make sure that the exported document meets the requirements of this standard.
For this, we will use the PAC3 tool. PAC stands for PDF Accessibility Checker.
This tool allows you to check if a PDF document meets the requirements of the PDF/UA standard.
PAC3 generates a summary report that displays which of the requirements are fulfilled and which are failed.
Let's load our report to this tool and check it.
As you can see in the Summary Report, all the requirements of the PDF/UA standard are fulfilled.
Another thing that the PAC3 tool allows you to do is to visualize a logical structure of a PDF document.
Let's see how this structure looks for our document.
Here you can see a tree that defines the order in which screen readers vocalize the document.
The Page View tab highlights the elements selected in the tree.
You can use this tab to see in which order the document elements will be vocalized.
Now let's make sure that the document content indeed will be vocalized in this order.
For vocalization, we will use the Adobe Acrobat Pro tool.
Let's open the document in this tool and turn on vocalization.
Image
Northwind Traders
One Portals Way.... Twin Points Washington 98156
1-206-555-1417
northwind@mail.com
www.northwind.com
Invoice
10643
Invoice Date
08-10-21
Bill To:
Company..... Alfred.....
You could hear that the elements in the document header were vocalized in the order
in which they appear in the tree that we saw in PAC3.
Let's turn on vocalization again and pay attention to how the first element in the document header will be vocalized.
Image.... Northwind Traders.... One Portals Way....
As you could hear, the element was vocalized as image.
Our reporting tool allows you to specify a so-called accessible description for report controls
and this description will be used for vocalization instead of the default content of these controls.
As an example, let's specify accessible description for this image.
For this, let's open the Report Designer, select the image, and assign some text to the image's Accessible Description property.
Then, let's open Preview and export the report to a PDF file that conforms to the PDF/A-3a standard.
As we did previously, we first want to make sure that the exported document meets the requirements of the chosen standard.
As for PDF/A standards, you can check the conformance in the Abode Acrobat Pro.
To do this, let's open the Standards panel and click Verify Conformance.
So, the verification succeeded. Now let's vocalize the document.
Northwind Icon.... Northwind Traders....
As you could here, the text that we assigned to the Accessible Description property was used to vocalized the image.
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