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Re: FW: CSS and 508 Challenge

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From: Langum, Michael J
Date: Aug 24, 2010 12:48PM

Jared asked: "why do you think only screen reader users would be interested in knowing that it's a fillable PDF"

My question arose because I am trying to ensure that the message spoken when a JAWS user lists only links, will be equivalent to the text displayed in the full HTML. A co-worker had suggested this code.

<dl>
<dt>OPM 71</dt>
<dd><a href="form.pdf" title="OPM 71, Request for leave or Approved Absence, Fillable">
Request for leave or Approved Absence</a></dd>
<dd>Fillable</dt>
<dd>[59 KB]</dd>
</dl>

I wanted to confirm whether or not it would do the job. I take your response to say "no."

-- Mike



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Jared Smith
Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2010 2:33 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] FW: CSS and 508 Challenge


On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 11:59 AM, Langum, Michael J wrote:

> Can you override the screen reader output of actual text within anchor
> tags using title attributes?

No. In this case the screen reader will generally ignore the title attribute and read the visible link text. In fact, there really isn't any way to hide or replace visible screen text for screen readers.

You can, however, add additional text and hide it visually so that it is only available to screen readers (e.g., <a href="mypdf.pdf">OPM 71<span class="hidden"> Fillable Form - PDF Format</a>), though this technique should be used judiciously.

In this case, why do you think only screen reader users would be interested in knowing that it's a fillable PDF. If this is useful information for screen reader users, wouldn't it be useful to everyone else?

Jared Smith