As someone with a visual disability who uses a talking computer system,
I wish to personally commend the accessibility of publications by the
Pragmatic Programmers site. When a book is only published in hard copy,
it is not usable to someone who does not see well enough to read print.
When a PDF edition is published but the security settings are so high
that they block assistive technology from accessing the text, the book
is also effectively unavailable to this segment of the public. If other
techniques to protect intellectual property interests while providing
electronic access are used, however, a win-win can result for authors
and customers.
In my experience, the Pragmatic Programmers publish accessible PDFs that
are custom produced with periodic insertions of text like “Prepared
exclusively for .” Although PDF manipulation to remove
such text might be possible by individuals with bad intent, this seems
to be a balanced approach, which I and others appreciate. I also like
the references to specific page numbers for more information on a topic,
since this allows me to search efficiently for that number because
skimming text is more difficult with speech output.
Regards,
Jamal