[Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

[Kamran Rasul via athen-list]

Hi,

We have been using Prep by Continual Engine<https://www.continualengine.com/prep-pdf-remediation-software/>

It has helped us remediate large volumes of PDFs with short turnarounds.

[cid:image001.png at 01DC9765.7561FF80]
Kamran Rasul, MEd.
Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS)
Phone: 410-516-1167
E-mail: krasul1 at jhu.edu<mailto:krasul1 at jhu.edu>
Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G
3400 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
Schedule a meeting with Kamran<https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/ATC2@live.johnshopkins.edu/bookings/>

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Kevin Andrews via athen-list
Sent: Friday, February 6, 2026 12:02 PM
To: Monica Olsson <molsson at sbctc.edu>; Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale


      External Email - Use Caution





Jumping in with some lived-reality perspective from Georgetown, since we’re actively navigating this right now under pretty real austerity conditions.



We have an Acrobat Pro site license, and I want to be clear for folks reading along: that solves licensing, not remediation. At scale, Acrobat helps with OCR and basic tagging, but it does not eliminate the human labor required for structure, reading order, tables, math, figures, or meaningful alt text—especially for STEM content. That’s where time and money actually go.



Budget is a huge constraint for us at the moment, so the conversation internally has had to shift from “how do we make everything accessible” to “how do we make defensible, impact-driven decisions.” That’s meant being very explicit about tradeoffs:

  *   Not all legacy PDFs are equal in risk or usage.
  *   Automated tools are, at best, a first pass—not an end state.
  *   Vendor remediation often scopes out alt text, math, and complex figures unless you pay significantly more.
  *   Retrofitting thousands of documents is often more expensive than replacing or re-authoring the most critical ones over time.



What’s been most helpful for us is framing this as triage and lifecycle management, not a one-time cleanup project: prioritizing high-use / high-risk materials, de-emphasizing low-traffic archives, and being honest with stakeholders about what’s achievable under current financial conditions.



No silver bullets here—just hard constraints and deliberate choices. Sharing in case it’s useful context for others facing the same pressures.

On Thu, Feb 5, 2026 at 9:22 PM Monica Olsson via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>> wrote:
Hi Amy, I plan to send you a document about Doc Access and security and thought that I had stated this in a prior email. Not a lot of folks know about the tool yet, in fact we (SBCTC) are they very reason a Canvas LTI tool even exists for the Doc Access tool. They built it for us :) I expect if our trial is successful and the tool is used at scale (really any scale) they will see a ton of higher ed clients over night…but we are kind of getting in at the beta stage. So, your inquiry to ATHEN may open a can of worms that I'm not entirely prepared for, but I guess it puts the tool on people's radar too!

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu>> on behalf of Amy Rovner via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2026 5:46:49 PM
To: Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu<mailto:Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>>; Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>; Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>>; Joshua Hori <jhori at ucdavis.edu<mailto:jhori at ucdavis.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

[Sent from outside SBCTC]

I'm very interested in the security of DocAccess. I hear that it can be embedded in Canvas. Is that how you are using it? I'm very suspect when companies using AI are too close to student data.

Thank you!
Amy


Amy Rovner, MPH RD
Director eLearning Services
Accessible IT Coordinator

Shoreline Community College

www.shoreline.edu<http://www.shoreline.edu/>  |  206.546.6937

eLearning Office: 206.546.6966

eLearning Email: elearning at shoreline.edu<mailto:elearning at shoreline.edu>

Shoreline Support Center<https://support.shoreline.edu/>


[Shoreline logo with tagline, Engage. Achieve.]
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu>> on behalf of Joshua Hori via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Sent: Monday, February 2, 2026 2:56 PM
To: Wallace, Sagan <Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu<mailto:Sagan.Wallace at oregonstate.edu>>; Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>; Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale

[ CAUTION: This email originated from outside Shoreline Community College. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. ]

DocAccess has been looking very interesting. They not only use AI for alt tags but also integrate with AIRA.io to provide human audio descriptions of images.

Best,

Joshua

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu>> on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 8:16 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>, Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale
So far everyone I've looked at will do large-scale projects, but not write alt text (though they'll include it if you write it). I used Allyant for outsourcing PDFs at the time.

Since I'm feeling snarky....why not just dump them in an ABBYY hot folder and call it a day? They're not going to make accessible STEM PDFs anyway, so why waste time finding the best option? 🙃


Sagan Wallace

they/them

________________________________
From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu>> on behalf of Susan Kelmer via athen-list <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 6:42 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Rec's for PDF remediation on a giant scale


[This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and attachments.]
I hope everyone's semester has gotten off to a bang-up start!

A department on my campus has a enormous stockpile of scientific/engineering-type PDFs that are publicly available, and that department wants to undertake turning them all into accessible documents.  Yes, they really want to do this, and first they asked me if I wanted to take on the project.

No thanks.

So I'm looking for recommendations for any large-scale PDF remediation companies that could do this kind of work.   Please and thanks.

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
Division of Student Life
T 303 735 4836
www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices<http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices>

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--
Best Regards,
Kevin Andrews
Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator
University Information Services
Georgetown University
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