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Reading upper-level Unicode glyphs in PDF

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From: Bevi Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Sep 7, 2009 9:40AM

I'm trying to find what the best solution is for inserting upper-level
glyphs into InDesign documents which are later exported as 508-accessible
PDFs. These glyphs are often symbols, such as bullets or scientific
characters, but can also include foreign language characters.

If I insert upper-level glyphs (higher than 255 from an OpenType or Unicode
font's extended character set) into an InDesign layout, the PDF doesn't pass
Acrobat's accessibility checker. Plus, when the glyphs are read by Acrobat's
Read Aloud utility, they're read as "blank" or "dot dot dot" or absolutely
nothing thereby ignoring the glyph.

My client's JAWs reader also isn't reading them correctly (I don't know
which version of JAWS my client is using).

Glyph examples:

From Myriad Pro, the Ohm sign (towards the end of the list) CID 390,
Unicode 2126

Or MS Arial Unicode, the Black Knight chess character, Unicode 265E

From Wingdings, the "checkmark in box" character, 0xFE (this is not a check
box field in a form: instead it's a symbol of a checked box you'd use in a
to-do list).

What's the best way to handle these symbol glyphs?

FYI, I can create character-level tags in InDesign (such as <emphasis> and
<strong>) but they are not retained when a PDF is exported from InDesign.

TIA,
--Bevi Chagnon

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Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED> | www.PubCom.com
Government and non-profit publishing specialists for print, web, marketing,
Acrobat, & 508
PublishingDC Group Co-Moderator |
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishingDC
Bevi blogs on Facebook |
www.facebook.com/pages/Takoma-Park-MD/PubCom/139231069223
And she tweets on Twitter | www.twitter.com/pubcom
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