WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Bold Italics

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Sep 26, 2012 2:39PM

I'm the original poster, so let me explain the situation my client is in.

An entire phrase will be in bold to emphasize it from the rest of the body
text and it will use the <strong> character style in MS Word.
Within the phrase is a book title that grammatically needs to be in
italics/emphasis.

However, when we apply <emphasis> to the book title that already has
<strong> applied (this is Word styles, not HTML code), the <strong> is
removed for the book title and only <emphasis> is left. With Word styles,
it's either / or: either <strong> or <emphasis>, not both.

This might not be a problem for screen readers because they'll use voice #1
for the first part with <strong>, voice #2 for the <emphasis> book title,
and revert back to voice #1 for the rest of the <strong> text and the user
will hear the difference between the 3 sections/

But this content is not just for accessibility: the same content is being
used for print publishing, web publishing, and a centralized XML-based
database. The book title needs to have both <strong> and <emphasis> applied
in Word (which is where the content is created), not either <strong> or
<emphasis>.

So to rephrase my original question:
Is there a defined tag for both <strong> + <emphasis> that is compliant with
WCAG 2.0? If so, does it have a matching character style in Word?

This doesn't look hopeful, given that screen readers don't even address
regular <strong> and <emphasis> very well!

- Bevi Chagnon

- PubCom.com - Trainers, Consultants, Designers, and Developers.
- Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and U.S. Federal Section 508
Accessibility.
- It's our 31st year!