[Accessibility] - Textual pdf to iiif not read by screen reader

[sharkboyto]

I understood that Mirador was not originally designed as a PDF file reader.
If I want to load a text-only PDF, is it possible to make it accessible to screen readers?
Is there a technique or workaround?

[a11yops]

It interests me too.

[marlo-longley]

I can start to look into this. Are you able to provide a link to a manifest with the type of PDF you are talking about? Thank you.

[a11yops]

template-bank.pdf

This is an example of an accessible PDF.
When this type of file is converted to IIIF, it essentially becomes an image-based document, lacking any underlying "real" or selectable text. As a result, assistive technologies, such as screen readers, cannot process the content, as they rely on genuine digital text.
I suspect the core issue lies within the PDF-to-IIIF conversion process, which seems to involve rasterization without preserving or generating a text layer.
1.
Is there a current or intended way to integrate a direct download link for the accessible (textual) version of the PDF within the Mirador viewer interface?
2.
What strategies can be adopted to ensure accessibility for documents served via IIIF, especially those originating from accessible PDFs? (e.g., using OCR annotation layers, or linking to external text transcripts).

Thanks.

[barmintor]

One of the reasons we added an overridable Text component in cf770ed was to permit an installation to build out more robust handling via (for example) PDF.js.

[jbaiter]

What strategies can be adopted to ensure accessibility for documents served via IIIF, especially those originating from accessible PDFs? (e.g., using OCR annotation layers, or linking to external text transcripts).

If you do have OCR for your PDFs, you can take a look at https://github.com/dbmdz/mirador-textoverlay, which basically recreates the "hidden text layer" feature of PDF in Mirador. I tested it with screenreaders, and it works fairly well, at least for simple layouts.