Following are the most common questions and answers about online conversion tools:
- What happened to the graphics and text formatting in my Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF) file?
- When converting by e-mail, is it possible to include multiple lines pointing to different Web addresses (URLs) in a single e-mail?
- Can I use the e-mail tool to convert the Adobe PDF files on my hard drive?
- Is there any charge for using Adobe's access tools available via the Web and e-mail?
- How do I enter a URL to the Adobe PDF file I want converted?
- I converted my Adobe PDF file to HTML without an error, but the results seem incomplete, or "jumbled up." What is wrong?
- The Adobe PDF file I want to convert is protected by a password. How do I get past this protection?
- How do I submit Adobe PDF files that are on an FTP server?
- Can I submit a file via e-mail as a MIME attachment?
- When I try to convert an Adobe PDF file to text or HTML, I get an error message saying that permission settings do not allow the conversion. What does this mean?
- I am having trouble downloading Adobe Reader® 6.0 software. Is there an alternate, more accessible download page?
- I have an Adobe PDF file in a language other than English. Can I convert it to text or HTML?
1. What happened to the graphics and text formatting in my Adobe PDF?
The Access conversion technology was developed to allow blind and visually impaired users to read Adobe PDF documents with speech synthesis software. For this reason, graphic elements are stripped from the file and text is reformatted during conversion.
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2. When converting by e-mail, is it possible to include multiple lines pointing to different Web addresses (URLs) in a single e-mail?
Yes, the e-mail conversion tools allow users to submit multiple URLs in a single e-mail message.
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3. Can I use the e-mail tool to convert the Adobe PDF files on my hard drive?
There are three solutions for converting Adobe PDF documents on local media into other formats:
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4. Is there any charge for using Adobe's accessibility tools on the Web and e-mail?
Adobe has developed these conversion tools as a free service to allow blind and visually impaired users to read Adobe PDF files.
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5. How do I enter a URL to the PDF file I want converted?
To ensure that the access.adobe.com conversion forms or the conversion e-mail accounts can find and open the file you want converted, you will have to enter a functional URL (Web address). A URL consists of three parts, and has the following format:
protocol://servername.com/:port/path
The first part is the server protocol for the server where the Adobe PDF file you want to convert is located. If it’s on a real Web server the protocol is "http." Otherwise, it's either "ftp," "gopher," or "wais." If you don’t know which server protocol the server you’re working with uses, your network administrator will probably be able to help you figure it out.
The second part is the server name. That’s the network name of the machine where the Web server is located. With some SLIP or PPP connections, there might not even be a network name, just a number; something like 134.7.14.109. You can use this number as the network name.
If the server has been installed on a port other than the default of 80 you will have to include the port number. Once again, if you don’t know this information, your network administrator should be able to help you.
The third part of the URL is the path. The root of this path begins with the directory containing the "Home Page" through which you gained access to the file, and ends with the full name of the file. This file name must include the .PDF file extension.
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6. I converted my Adobe PDF file to HTML without an error, but the results seem incomplete, or "jumbled up." What's wrong?
The problem is probably that the text in the converted HTML file has NOT been correctly reorganized to follow the reading order of the text in the original Adobe PDF document. This is where using the free Adobe Reader offers greater flexibility. With Reader 6.0, you can choose from several reading orders, which helps eliminate the results you’re seeing with these online conversion tools. To download Reader 6.0, go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html.
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7. The Adobe PDF file I want to convert is protected by a password. How do I get past this protection?
This depends on how the file was password protected. Unfortunately, access.adobe.com can’t handle Password, or User Name and Password security schemes that are implemented on other Web servers. If, however, the password protection is specific to the Adobe PDF file, using the "Advanced PDF to HTML Conversion Form" may allow access.adobe.com to open the file.
Acrobat software allows a user to save an Adobe PDF file with password protection. The password is stored in the PDF file, and Reader will put up a dialog box asking you to enter the password whenever you try to open it. Access.adobe.com provides support for getting past this form of password protection. There’s a "Password" field on the "Advanced PDF to HTML Conversion Form," where you can enter the password for the file you’re converting. Provided with the correct password, access.adobe.com should be able to convert the file to HTML.
If possible, contact the person who originally posted the Adobe PDF file and find out if it has a password, and if so, what that password is. Then go to the "Advanced PDF to HTML Conversion Form" and enter the URL for the file and the password.
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8. How do I submit Adobe PDF files that are on an FTP server?
In order to convert files on an ftp server you must use either the form-based or e-mail-based conversion methods, and submit a valid URL to the file you want to convert. For instance in order to convert the file, "foo.pdf" on the FTP server "bar," you would specify the URL as "ftp://bar/foo.pdf".
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9. Can I submit a file via e-mail as a MIME attachment?
Yes, the e-mail tools available on access.adobe.com allow you to submit Adobe PDF documents as MIME attachments to e-mail messages.
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10. When I try to convert an Adobe PDF file to text or HTML, I get an error message saying that permission settings don’t allow the conversion. What does this mean?
Acrobat software allows users to create Adobe PDF documents with password-protected security settings, including "Changing PDF Not Allowed" and "Selection of Text Not Allowed." If a PDF document has these security settings and you know the password, you can use the advanced forms submission tool to convert the document. The e-mail tool cannot convert an Adobe PDF document with security settings, even if you know the password. If you’re getting an error message, contact the author of the Adobe PDF document to see if they’ll provide the password or disable the security settings, then resubmit the document.
Note: Adobe PDF files created with Acrobat 6.0 may provide more convenience for users with visual disabilities. New security settings in Acrobat 6.0 make it possible to enable content for accessibility, while still prohibiting copying and extraction.
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11. I am having trouble downloading Adobe Reader 6.0 software. Is there an alternate, more accessible download page?
Yes. Please go to the accessible Reader download page.
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12. I have an Adobe PDF file in a language other than English. Can I convert it to text or HTML?
The services provided by access.adobe.com work best on documents in English. Documents in European languages, such as French or German, should convert fairly well with the exception of symbols that can’t be represented by ASCII text, such as umlauts. Languages requiring double-byte characters, such as Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and Hebrew are not supported.
Adobe Reader 6.0 supports more languages than these online tools, including Japanese. To download free Adobe Reader 6.0 software, go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html.
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