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Re: Question: inlne headings

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Aug 19, 2013 2:21PM

In documents (Word, PDF, InDesign layout files), the tags eventually used by
accessibility technologies are created based on the visual formatting
styles.

Paragraph styles apply the format to the entire paragraph. Character styles,
on the other hand, apply formatting to just what's selected by the cursor,
such as a word or 2 at the beginning of a paragraph as in my example.

I can't tell InDesign to convert a character style to an <H1> tag. The
program can't do that (at least not at this time). Accessibility tags can
only be generated from paragraph styles; therefore, the run-in heading must
be its own separate paragraph in order to have an <h1> tag applied to it by
InDesign. (This confirms Judith's comment.)

We have several technologies that are converging, and sometimes conflicting
with each other.
1. There's the typesetting, word processing, and desktop publishing industry
whose technologies and procedures go back to the 1880s.
2. There's the accessibility community with its procedures developed over
the last 10+ years.
3. And there's HTML which developed 20 years ago but was only standardized
during the last 15 years.

I wish all these players would standardize among themselves!
— Is a heading a separate paragraph or can it be just a few selected words
in a larger paragraph?

— Is the correct tag for lists <L> or <ul>/<ol>?

— Do I bold some text by surrounding it in a <b> tag or a <strong> tag? Or
do I just use the little B button in the top control panel of the software?
Or do I select the bold weight of the font, as in Helvetica Bold? What if I
use an extra-heavy weight of the font like Helvetica Black, is that still
tagged as <strong> or <b>?

These are the great questions of life that I ponder in the wee hours of the
night.

— Bevi Chagnon
— PubCom.com — Trainers, Consultants, Designers, and Developers.
— Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and U.S. Federal Section 508
Accessibility.