WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: PDFs and JAWS

for

From: David Ashleydale
Date: Jul 11, 2011 5:06PM


I've attached a simple PDF I just made that demonstrates this. There is only
one paragraph in the document and it has been tagged as a paragraph.

I have JAWS 12 on and I go to the top of the page. I hit Down Arrow and it
reads the first line. It stops reading at the line break and waits for me to
hit the Down Arrow again before continuing.

Is this the normal default behavior, or is there a different way I need to
tag the PDF so that it doesn't stop reading at the end of the line in the
middle of a sentence?

Thanks,
David

On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 3:29 PM, David Ashleydale < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> The PDF is tagged. I don't have a copy that I can show you right now,
> unfortunately. But using the text I wrote earlier as an example, that whole
> paragraph shows up in the tag tree as one paragraph. When I choose the
> "Highlight Content" option for the Tags, and then click on that paragraph in
> the tag tree, the whole paragraph highlights in the document.
>
> However, when I listen to it with JAWS 12, it pauses at the end of each
> line, even though the whole thing is all in one paragraph tag.
>
> Note: no pausing occurs when I tell JAWS to just read the entire document
> from top to bottom. It does that fine. This only occurs when I start at the
> top of the PDF and navigate through the document using the Down Arrow.
>
> Thanks,
> David
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:
>
>> David,
>>
>> If the PDF is correctly tagged, you should get each paragraph without
>> pauses.
>>
>> If the PDF hasn't been tagged, or is tagged poorly, then the text-stream
>> delivered to you as an AT user is a crapshoot in the first instance.
>>
>> In such cases, if you are lucky enough to ONLY suffer pauses, consider
>> yourself fortunate!
>>
>> Duff Johnson
>>
>> US Committee for ISO/DIS 14289 (PDF/UA), Chair
>>
>> p +1 617.283.4226
>> e <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> t http://www.twitter.com/duffjohnson
>> w http://www.duff-johnson.com
>>
>>