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Re: A case for artifacting bullets in unordered lists in PDFs

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Jul 23, 2013 2:21PM

Some comments inline:

Currently I¹m working with someone who insists that unordered lists should have a <Lbl> in the tag tree if there is a graphic or glyph representing the Œbullet¹ character. My approach to unordered lists in PDFs is to artifact the bullet character.

[AWK] Lbl is optional, per the ISO 32000 and ISO 14289 specs. Not a bad idea, but optional. I would disagree that artifacting the bullet character is helpful. Most AT recognize the bullet character and announce "bullet" so you don't need to use ActualText unless you are using a non-standard bullet (e.g. using a star for the bullet). As far as how the information is conveyed to AT if you use Lbl and Lbody, just Lbody, or even just put the text inside the LI directly - it is the same. The only difference with JAWS is that when you use Lbl the bullet is being read as if it is on its own line, which in my mind isn't a great way of announcing the bullet item.

This is all well and good, but it doesn¹t answer my client¹s complaint that if JAWS comes across a bulleted list, it¹s difficult to differentiate the different List Item elements on the page. Is there a way that AT is 'supposed' to interpret unordered lists? If we go with my preference, how does the average AT user typically acknowledge separate list item elements on a page? The problem is, while it would be great to have every PDF we make conform to ISO 14289; technically they only need to conform to Section 508. Worse, the only reference to handling lists from WCAG (which Section 508 Refresh is essentially going to mirror) can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20120103/PDF21.

[AWK] screen readers are provided with information that a list is present, how many list items there are, and what list nesting level the list is at. JAWS allows users to jump from list to list and from list item to item with quickkeys, although some users will read the list with the arrow keys. There is no doubt that the bullet or the number helps differentiate for the user when they are on a new bullet in this case, but the AT does provide additional tools.

This page has the worst recommendation for creating lists. First it suggests that using the list button on the ribbon as the "easiest way to ensure that lists are formatted correctly when they are converted to PDF².
It doesn¹t actually, since it throws the label element in with the <Lbody> whenever one exports a list from Word. The user always has to edit those elements in the tag tree later. It even goes so far as to show screenshots of what happens when you do that. The worst part of this Œtechnique¹ is that it mentions the List Elements, but completely fails to explain what to do with any of them.

[AWK] The context of the paragraph is making a list in Word and converting it to PDF. Can you advise on a better or easier way to accomplish this within Word? The lists are correctly formatted when created from Word in this way, although it is not the only way for a list to be correctly formatted. There is no need to change these lists in Acrobat later to add the Lbl tag, unless it just makes you happy to see the full form of the allowable list structure in the tags.