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Re: Emphasized Text in PDFs

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From: Andrews, David B (DEED)
Date: Oct 22, 2013 2:53PM

JAWS does have a bunch of "speech schemes" including some for what they call proof reading. They give you all kinds of information about the characters on the screen as they change. As has been said, this isn't the default setting though and most screen reader users probably don't know how to do it.

We have been considering these issues here in MN, the legislature has a web site where legislation, proposed legislation, changing legislation etc., is put up. There is strike through text, and text with other attributes, the presence of which is necessary to understand the document. And ... there isn't an easy or automatic way to signify such text.

Dave



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Patrick Burke
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 2:34 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Emphasized Text in PDFs

I will amend Lucy's comment slightly.:

Jaws can query the status of the current character (probably NVDA & Voiceover can also, though I can't test them now). JawsKey+F tells you the font, plus any emphasis info. So *if* you think "Hey this is a short paragraph. I wonder if it's a bolded heading?", you have a way to find out. But you will *not* be told about it by default.

Patrick

At 12:12 PM 10/22/2013, Lucy Greco wrote:
>Hello:
> Even though the html supports the strong and ... screen readers and
>or other AT do not recognize it in any way and it never comes over to us.
>
>Lucia Greco
>Web Access Analyst
>IST-Campus Technology Services
>University of California, Berkeley
>(510) 289-6008 skype: lucia1-greco
>http://webaccess.berkeley.edu
>Follow me on twitter @accessaces
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of David
>Ashleydale
>Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 12:09 PM
>To: WebAIM Discussion List
>Subject: [WebAIM] Emphasized Text in PDFs
>
>I've been doing some research trying to figure out if there's anything
>additional that PDF authors need to do in order to expose bold or
>italicized text to assistive technology users. I specifically mean text
>that is meant to be emphasized.
>
>I'm coming up with blanks. It's looking to me like PDFs are different
>from HTML in this regard in that in HTML, page authors are expected to
>use <strong> and <em> instead of <b> and <i>. I was expecting to find
>that PDF authors are supposed to add an emphasis "tag" or attribute to
>emphasized words, but I'm finding no such thing.
>
>Is it true that if text in a PDF is bold or italicized for emphasis,
>there is nothing additional that the PDF author needs to do using Acrobat Pro?
>No additional tags, attributes, etc.?
>
>Thanks,
>David
>>>messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
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--
Patrick J. Burke

Coordinator
UCLA Disabilities &
Computing Program

Phone: 310 206-6004
E-mail: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Location: 4909 Math Science


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