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Comparison of Digital Publishing Platforms

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Summary

In 2025, the DLF Accessibility Working Group did digital accessibility testing using the Accessibility Auditing Shortlist on three digital publishing platforms: Pressbooks, Scalar, and Manifold. Our results showed that Pressbooks was the most accessible of these platforms, Scalar the least accessible, and Manifold in the middle.

Pressbooks features accessibility documentation and a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT). The reader perspective as well as the maker interface are accessible. That being said, the onus is still on the author to use the accessibility best practices that Pressbooks supports (e.g. using proper headings, adding effective alternative text, and writing descriptive link text).

In contrast, Scalar has no accessibility documentation and no VPAT. From the reader perspective, Scalar projects are not accessible, and the maker interface for authors is also not accessible.

Manifold has some accessibility documentation but no VPAT. From the reader perspective, Manifold is somewhat accessible, though its annotating feature and its built-in media player are not accessible. The maker interface for authors is technically accessible, but presents barriers for authors using assistive technology (more detail in the Quick-View Facts below). Similar to Pressbooks, the onus is on the author to use accessibility best practices; however, Manifold does not provide documentation on how to properly prepare accessible files for ingestion.

Quick-View facts

Pressbooks

This is the most accessible authoring platform we tested, and includes documentation to support creating accessible PressBooks.

  • The PressBooks authoring and reader sides are generally accessible.
  • Positives:
    • Accessible as long as you use best practices.
  • Negatives:
    • When it comes to the publishing/reading side of PressBooks, much of the accessibility of a PressBooks book is the author’s responsibility.

Scalar

We found that Scalar was not accessible. This is the least accessible publishing platform that we tested.

Manifold

In general, we have some reservations around Manifold's accessibility.

  • VPAT: No official VPAT. LAA’s VPAT.
  • WCAG Level: “aim to meet WCAG 2.1 AA” but haven’t found verification of meeting it.
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Link to full DLF DAWG assessment
  • Positives:
    • Generally accessible on the reader side as long as you use best practices.
  • Negatives:
    • UI issues
    • Focus errors (non intuitive reading order and focus)
    • Strong cognitive load issues around understanding the frontend and backend.
    • Backend is only available in a night or dark mode.
    • Lacks supporting documentation on creating accessible projects with Manifold.



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