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Thread: Emphasized Text in PDFs
Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)
From: David Ashleydale
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 1:09PM
Subject: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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I've been doing some research trying to figure out if there's anything
additional that PDF authors need to do in order to expose bold or
italicized text to assistive technology users. I specifically mean text
that is meant to be emphasized.
I'm coming up with blanks. It's looking to me like PDFs are different from
HTML in this regard in that in HTML, page authors are expected to use
<strong> and <em> instead of <b> and <i>. I was expecting to find that PDF
authors are supposed to add an emphasis "tag" or attribute to emphasized
words, but I'm finding no such thing.
Is it true that if text in a PDF is bold or italicized for emphasis, there
is nothing additional that the PDF author needs to do using Acrobat Pro? No
additional tags, attributes, etc.?
Thanks,
David
From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 1:12PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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Hello:
Even though the html supports the strong and ... screen readers and or
other AT do not recognize it in any way and it never comes over to us.
Lucia Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces
From: Patrick Burke
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 1:34PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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I will amend Lucy's comment slightly.:
Jaws can query the status of the current character (probably NVDA &
Voiceover can also, though I can't test them now). JawsKey+F tells
you the font, plus any emphasis info. So *if* you think "Hey this is
a short paragraph. I wonder if it's a bolded heading?", you have a
way to find out. But you will *not* be told about it by default.
Patrick
At 12:12 PM 10/22/2013, Lucy Greco wrote:
>Hello:
> Even though the html supports the strong and ... screen readers and or
>other AT do not recognize it in any way and it never comes over to us.
>
>Lucia Greco
>Web Access Analyst
>IST-Campus Technology Services
>University of California, Berkeley
>(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
>http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: David Ashleydale
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 1:34PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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Hi Lucy,
I know that screen readers and other AT don't announce emphasized text by
default, but I believe there are ways to investigate it if you want. But
this only works if strong or em are used as opposed to b or i in HTML, I
believe. I was just trying to find out if PDF authors need to do anything
special to emphasized words in order for AT users to be able to investigate
it if they want.
Thanks,
David
On Tuesday, October 22, 2013, Lucy Greco wrote:
> Hello:
> Even though the html supports the strong and ... screen readers and or
> other AT do not recognize it in any way and it never comes over to us.
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Access Analyst
> IST-Campus Technology Services
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: Lucy Greco
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 1:43PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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David and Patrick I do know that an expert user can find that information
but I only think at the beginner and or intermediate user level when
thinking of creating a web site. A large majority of users will not know
how to ask for that information and many many more would not know to ask
for that kind of information. Yes I can check the characteristics of a
letter or word on a page but would I? know! what would be the point. the
last time I used that feature in jaws was to read a sadocu screen and
needed to tell witch numbers were fixed. As it was that still did not
work as well as it should. Lucy
l
Lucia Greco
Web Access Analyst
IST-Campus Technology Services
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
Follow me on twitter @accessaces
From: Steve Faulkner
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 2:02PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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>But this only works if strong or em are used as opposed to b or i in HTML
I don't believe this to be the case, its the font style that AT pick up not
the semantics of the elements.
--
Regards
SteveF
HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>;
On 22 October 2013 20:34, David Ashleydale < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi Lucy,
>
> I know that screen readers and other AT don't announce emphasized text by
> default, but I believe there are ways to investigate it if you want. But
> this only works if strong or em are used as opposed to b or i in HTML, I
> believe. I was just trying to find out if PDF authors need to do anything
> special to emphasized words in order for AT users to be able to investigate
> it if they want.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
> On Tuesday, October 22, 2013, Lucy Greco wrote:
>
> > Hello:
> > Even though the html supports the strong and ... screen readers and or
> > other AT do not recognize it in any way and it never comes over to us.
> >
> > Lucia Greco
> > Web Access Analyst
> > IST-Campus Technology Services
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> > http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> > Follow me on twitter @accessaces
> >
> >
> >
From: David Ashleydale
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 2:11PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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Hi, Lucy and Patrick
I think you're establishing that what I'm trying to do is low priority.
That's very important to know.
But I would still like to know the answer to my question if there's anyone
out there that knows.
Thanks!
David
On Tuesday, October 22, 2013, Lucy Greco wrote:
> David and Patrick I do know that an expert user can find that information
> but I only think at the beginner and or intermediate user level when
> thinking of creating a web site. A large majority of users will not know
> how to ask for that information and many many more would not know to ask
> for that kind of information. Yes I can check the characteristics of a
> letter or word on a page but would I? know! what would be the point. the
> last time I used that feature in jaws was to read a sadocu screen and
> needed to tell witch numbers were fixed. As it was that still did not
> work as well as it should. Lucy
>
>
> l
>
> Lucia Greco
> Web Access Analyst
> IST-Campus Technology Services
> University of California, Berkeley
> (510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
> http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
> Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>
From: Andrews, David B (DEED)
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 2:53PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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JAWS does have a bunch of "speech schemes" including some for what they call proof reading. They give you all kinds of information about the characters on the screen as they change. As has been said, this isn't the default setting though and most screen reader users probably don't know how to do it.
We have been considering these issues here in MN, the legislature has a web site where legislation, proposed legislation, changing legislation etc., is put up. There is strike through text, and text with other attributes, the presence of which is necessary to understand the document. And ... there isn't an easy or automatic way to signify such text.
Dave
From: Patrick Burke
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 2:59PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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Just to follow from Steve's point:
The reason to prefer em & strong is for improved semantic structure.
There's no functional difference for any (?) existing AT.
Patrick
At 01:02 PM 10/22/2013, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> >But this only works if strong or em are used as opposed to b or i in HTML
>
>I don't believe this to be the case, its the font style that AT pick up not
>the semantics of the elements.
>
>--
>
>Regards
>
>SteveF
>HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/>;
>
>
>On 22 October 2013 20:34, David Ashleydale < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Hi Lucy,
> >
> > I know that screen readers and other AT don't announce emphasized text by
> > default, but I believe there are ways to investigate it if you want. But
> > this only works if strong or em are used as opposed to b or i in HTML, I
> > believe. I was just trying to find out if PDF authors need to do anything
> > special to emphasized words in order for AT users to be able to investigate
> > it if they want.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > David
From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Oct 22 2013 5:14PM
Subject: Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs
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At this time, PDFs do not support character tags such as <em> and <strong>,
so no, authors don't need to do anything.
They might in the future, and AT might support also them in PDFs.
--Bevi Chagnon
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