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

for

From: Jonathan Metz
Date: Jul 23, 2013 2:47PM

Hello Andrew!

I’ve already told my client to ignore the previous suggestions about
artifacting labels because it is apparently more accessible to leave them
in there. I guess I just needed proof that real-world examples existed,
and since they do, there is not much point in directing others to do
otherwise.



[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.

Sure. I’ll tell you the same suggestion I made to WCAG (thanks, btw for
that link you provided to Olaf earlier).

I would argue that a better phrase would be that “using the list button in
the Ribbon provides a relatively decent basis or foundation for proper
list structure, but users should expect to perform further work in
Acrobat."


[AWK] 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.

Actually, if a user wants to ensure that they are following specification,
they do. ISO 32000 Table 336 states "(Label) A name or number that
distinguishes a given item from others in the same list or other group of
like items. NOTE: In a dictionary list, for example, it contains the term
being defined; in a bulleted or numbered list, it contains the bullet
character or the number of the list item and associated punctuation.”

Placing the bullet or number in the LBody tag is incorrect (LBody,
according to 32000 Table 336, is "The descriptive content of a list
item.”). Further, use of the ListNumbering attribute, as required by ISO
14289 states that it is "The numbering system used to generate the content
of the Lbl (Label) elements in an autonumbered list, or the symbol used to
identify each item in an unnumbered list.” If the Lbl tag is omitted, then
how does the ListNumbering system supposed to work?

So if a user should not artifact bullets yet should NOT put the bullet in
the Lbl tag, where would one put that if there was no need to add a Lbl
tag.

Thanks again for your comments and suggestions,
Jonathan