Ace, by DAISY: Open Source EPUB Accessibility Checker - Final Beta

[Avneesh Singh]

 

Ace, by DAISY, the newly developed accessibility checking tool for EPUB, has entered its final phase of testing with a new beta release this week. The full release of Ace 1.0 is scheduled for the end of January 2018, so now is the ideal time to explore how you can incorporate accessibility checking within your workflows.

 

The Ace tool performs a variety of automated checks to assist in the evaluation of conformance to the EPUB Accessibility Specification and against the rules defined in WCAG, ARIA, and HTML, producing a list for the manual checks that need to be performed, as well as data visualizations to aid the process. Ace, by DAISY can be usable as a standalone tool, or can be integrated as a third-party component in broader publishing workflows or authoring processes.

 

Ace is currently a command line tool and there are step-by-step instructions on how to install, update and use the tool available at https://inclusivepublishing.org/toolbox/accessibility-checker/getting-started/. Feedback thus far has been incredibly positive and constructive, and we would like to thank everyone who has been involved.

 

This ground-breaking new tool will help your company meet industry requirements of accessible procurement, and produce higher quality, standards compliant publications. Your production teams can be reassured that they are performing the necessary checks to ensure that your content is as accessible as possible and, as a result, meeting the needs of all your readers.

 

If you haven’t used Ace yet now is the perfect time to get on board. For further information on Ace see https://inclusivepublishing.org/Ace

 

We look forward to hearing your feedback.

 

Finally, you can keep up with the latest information on Ace, and as well as industry accessibility news through the Inclusive Publishing newsletter: https://inclusivepublishing.org/newsletter/

 

Ace is developed by the DAISY Consortium, the international non-profit organization contributing to mainstream standards and tools, driving innovation in accessible publishing since 1996.

 

With regards

Avneesh Singh

COO, DAISY Consortium