Saving PPTX as PDF does not retain accessibility features

Aspose.Slides Product Family
1

I have a pptx that I am loading into Aspose.Slides for manipulation. Generally the final presentation is downloaded as a PDF for distribution. I have a requirement that the final PDF be accessible. I’ve setup the initial PPTX using all the accessibility guidance in PowerPoint and verified that the PDF produced from PowerPoint is accessible.
However, when the PDF is produced from Aspose, the accessibility features are missing.
Is there a way to make sure that the Aspose PDF preserves accessibility?
Thanks.

2

@bhickman

Can you please elaborate your requirements what accessibility features are missing. Please also share the sample presentation and desired output PDF that you want to create using Aspose.Slides API.

3

My expectation is that it should preserve all the accessibility features that were in the PDF created from PowerPoint.
Here’s a simple example:

  1. Go to https://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-accessibility-checker.html and download the PDF Accessibility Checker.
  2. Go to https://templates.office.com/en-us/accessible-powerpoint-template-sampler-tm16401472 and download the Accessible PowerPoint template.
  3. Open the Accessible PowerPoint template in PowerPoint.
  4. Save the Accessible PowerPoint template as a PDF. Be sure to open ‘More options’ then select Options and make sure ‘Document properties’ and ‘Document structure tags for accessibility’ are checked.
  5. Open the PDF in the PDF Accessibility Checker.
  6. Observe: While the PDF is not fully PDF/UA compliant, it does have the Structure Tree which is important for reading order.
    image.png (34.4 KB)
  7. Observe: Selecting the Screen Reader Preview will show how a screen reader would read the PDF.
  8. Load the Accessible PowerPoint template in Aspose.Slides and save it as a PDF from Aspose.Slides.
  9. Open the Aspose PDF in the PDF Accessibility Checker.
  10. Observe: Many of the Checkpoints that were available in the PowerPoint PDF are missing for the Aspose PDF.
    image.png (33.2 KB)
  11. Observe: The Screen Reader Preview is not available. This is because the Structure Tree is missing.

This editor doesn’t allow me to upload the PPTX file, but here are the PDFs I have.
ACCESSIBLE TEMPLATE SAMPLER from PPT.pdf (438.4 KB)
Accessible template sampler from Apose.pdf (2.2 MB)

4

@bhickman

We don’t have requested support in API at the moment. A ticket with ID SLIDESNET-42348 has been created in our issue tracking system to further investigate and resolve the issue. This thread has been linked with the issue so that you may be notified once the support will be available.

5

The issues you have found earlier (filed as SLIDESNET-42348) have been fixed in this update. This message was posted using Bugs notification tool.