Consider this. You run a large business, and most of your customers have access whenever they want, but there’s one group of customers that you’ve locked out. The only way that these customers can gain access is to make a special arrangement with you in advance. How do you think they feel? Different than the rest? Unfairly disadvantaged? Ready to take their business elsewhere perhaps? My guess is you

By Joanne Gore, March 16, 2018 – For Graphic Arts This tried and true method for assessing success is still valid. Each year, millions of us set goals to lose weight, exercise more, make more money, and quit or cut back smoking or drinking. Unfortunately, we often bite off more than we can chew and expect sweeping results in a short time. As a result, we don’t hit the

By Joanne Gore, February 12, 2018 – For Graphic Arts When stuff goes wrong, seize the opportunity to become a trusted advisor You know how the old saying goes: 80% of business comes from 20% of your customers. No matter what the size of your business, it should not be difficult to name your top ten accounts. These are the accounts that generate the most revenue for your business

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. Web and document accessibility has changed dramatically over the last several years. The traditional formats (such as hard copy braille and large print) are still regularly requested, but electronic formats are becoming ever more prevalent. Accessible HTML5 is a good example of this. Although HTML is generally associated with web pages, it can also be used

Leslie Wengenroth – Director, Marketing Communications – Crawford Technologies Inc. For most organizations, creating and delivering accessible documents to meet the needs of their blind, partially-sighted, and cognitively disabled customers is a constantly evolving process. We all know that it’s important to be in compliance with global regulations, but the regulations themselves and their enforcement have changed over the past few years. Our blog post on the recently announced

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. Although automation has made creating accessible documents more efficient, testing is still a vitally important step in the process, and is a component that some organizations don’t fully understand. To start with, when we talk about testing accessible documents we tend to use the terms Quality Assurance and Quality Control interchangeably, but in reality they are

Laurie Charlwood – Solutions Consultant – Crawford Technologies Inc. A basic PDF file has no logical structure – it is just a set of text and graphic elements positioned on a sequence of pages. However, PDF does support a logical structure tree that can be used to describe the underlying content of the document. This structure tree is defined separately from the text and graphic elements in the file

Dennis Quon, EDP – Document Accessibility Solutions Development Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. – ABOD Rep, Xplor Canada On January 18th, 2018, the ICT Refresh came into full effect for anyone doing business with or receiving funding from the US Federal Government. The refresh covers and addresses changes to Information and Communications Technologies such as electronic documents, web sites that include mobile content as well as accessible interfaces. This

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. We’ve been hearing a lot in the last few years about the need to comply with document accessibility regulations. Whether you’re an expert on the subject or just learning the basics, you know that if you provide customer communications you have to make them available in a variety of formats. But does compliance automatically guarantee a

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. What are the differences between Accessible PDF and Accessible HTML5? Is one of them better than the other? These are questions participants often ask us during presentations on document accessibility. Discussing the differences – and the similarities – between these two electronic formats is relatively straightforward. However, the question of whether one is better than the

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. I freely admit that when I first heard the term #a11y I was a little confused. Then a friend told me that #i18n represents Internationalization because there are 18 letters between the I and the N and it clicked. (if you are anything like me you are now counting to see if there really are 11

By Jen Goulden, EDP – Project & Quality Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. We all deal with a myriad of document types – books and manuals, marketing materials, signs, packages, invoices, statements and other communications too numerous to mention. This is equally true for individuals who are unable to read conventional print because of a visual or cognitive disability. So, how should you handle graphics and tables? What are

Dennis Quon, EDP – Document Accessibility Solutions Development Manager – Crawford Technologies Inc. – ABOD Rep, Xplor Canada The US Access Board has finally released the final rules for the Section 508 NPRM or as it is now known, the Section 508 Refresh. This is a follow up on my blog that I penned in March of 2015. Are you doing business with the US Federal Government, a government

Joanne Gore – Vice President – Xplor Canada I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression: “There’s never enough time to do the job right…but there’s always enough time to do it over”. In today’s world of “ten jobs making their way through the shop in the next hour” this has never been more true. How often do you hear the words: urgent; as soon as possible; how quickly can

Joanne Gore – Vice President – National Were you at drupa this year? I wasn’t. Well, I wasn’t there physically. But I have to say… on many days I felt like I was truly there. Between pictures, tweets, posts, videos, newsletters, email blasts and everything in between, I almost felt like I was there…minus all the walking! “70% of event programmers said the viral nature of an event is

Franklin Friedmann – Secretary – Xplor National Canada Too often I have written a blog entry concerning some detail of business and the resolution. Having just returned from a real holiday, no cell phone, no laptop or equivalent, instead keeping up with our two generations, it was a liberating world. I’m reminded of a time when we returned from an earlier time off “a generation ago”, when neither the

Dennis Quon – ABOD Rep/Past President – Xplor Eastern Canada Outsourcing business processes has been in the spotlight for many years. Corporations and organizations look to outsource to save cost, increase competitiveness, focus on their core competencies and ensure they provide the best services for a non-core business area. If there was a candidate for outsourcing, document accessibility alternate formats would rank as one of top areas to consider

Dennis Quon – Abod Rep/Past President – Xplor Canada For anyone producing documents either transactional, brochure ware or web pages, AODA – the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities act requires all large private organizations that do business in Ontario to begin to provide accessible documents on January 1, 2016. Your clock is ticking! As part of the integrated standard for information and communications, public small/large and private sector organizations must

Franklin Friedmann – Secretary – Xplor Canada What can realistically be said about technology that improves the quality of life? It seems as we may have gone on holiday, we are less likely to get away from the office at all. While at work, the modern cellphone through iPhone allows you to reach everyone, however they can get to you as well! What kind of holiday can we then expect

Joanne Gore – Vice President – Xplor Canada I first heard about LinkedIn around the time it was founded, back in 2003. At the time, I was working as a Marketing Manager for an Internet Incubator. The Internet was a pretty new thing and everyone was caught up in the .dot com era. It didn’t take long for that bubble to burst. Many companies did not survive, including my

Kyle Tavares – Events Director – Xplor Ryerson As a recent graduate from Ryerson University; now stepping into the document industry I wanted to write about something all Xplorers could relate to –workplace communication. This topic is applicable for all Xplorers no matter what specific industry you are a part of. Workplace communication is the transmitting of information between a person or group and another person or group of people.

Julia Reese – Secretary – Xplor Western Canada Technology is constantly changing which, in turn, causes our world to change along with it. I’ve come to realize that the only thing that is constant and that can be relied upon in life is change. Another thing I’ve realized is that we all have a choice when it comes to change – we can move along with it or we can

Dave Saunders – Vice President – Xplor Eastern Canada I am really not the right person to write about Xplor and electronic document processing. It is not part of my day-to-day responsibilities. I would be much more comfortable writing about accounting or tax or the importance of selecting the right power of attorney and the ramifications of a bad selection. However, the reason that I am involved in Xplor will

Cheryl Kay – Secretary – Xplor Eastern Canada“Oh, we’re going electronic. We don’t need any help with forms design.”I heard this recently from a customer whose forms contain critical information that needs to be read and interpreted in a fast paced, multi-tasky (new adjective) environment. Knowing that a well-designed (good) form can reduce the incidence of errors by as much as 50% or more, we had approached them with the

Valerie Drozdowsky – Administrative Director – Xplor Ryerson It is not the end, it is only the beginning…for Xplor Ryerson. Although the school year is coming to an end for many university students, Xplor Ryerson is working forward in planning an exciting upcoming year for Ryerson students, starting in September, with a new executive team onboard. Xplor Ryerson has done a phenomenal job in terms of establishing itself in

Paul Abdool - Treasurer - National At the turn of the last century, organizations typically elected to track the following 3 job statuses: Job received Job printed Job shipped Eventually this “job tracking” evolved from multiple daily meetings, notes on whiteboards and paper status logging to the automated tracking of documents from the time of electronic submission, to print output and finishing (inserting that output into envelopes). Operations managers