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Re: PDF language not recognized by screenreaders

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Jan 24, 2013 10:31AM

Andrew wrote: "InDesign doesn't have an explicit "document language"
setting, but it is intuiting one from the default paragraph style language
setting."

Thanks for this critical info, Andrew.
Want to clarify what you said: when you say "default paragraph style," do
you mean InDesign's built-in paragraph style called [Basic Paragraph] that
appears in square brackets in the styles panel?

"What isn't set is the document language setting as shown in the document
properties. ... I'll share this information with the InDesign team and
work to get this addressed."
This would be wonderful!
Most graphic designers do not use [Basic Paragraph] at all to format their
InDesign layouts. It was panned by the design community when it came out a
few versions back, mainly due to ignorance and a lack of foresight, and so
most designers just ignore it and instead use other styles to format their
body text. Therefore, assuming that the settings of [Basic Paragraph] will
control things might not work for many graphic designers.

Question: if a paragraph has its language set to, say, French, will child
styles based on it also inherit - and retain in the PDF - the French
language setting? Since [Basic Paragraph] sets the language for the entire
document, how does the language setting affect child styles of other styles?

Example of some paragraph styles and language settings:
[Basic Paragraph] = Dutch for the entire document, by default in the
language setting.

Sidebar Text = French for the paragraph language setting.

Sidebar Bullets (based on Sidebar Text) = ? Does it inherit the
French language setting from the parent style, Sidebar Text?

-Bevi Chagnon

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