WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Untagged PDF doc with table structure

for

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Feb 19, 2015 8:42PM

> Since version 5.5, there's been no need to use the structure pane for accessible PDFs from InDesign.

Bevi, I think what you are saying is that you can use the articles pane and not worry about the structure pane as the article pane sets the content order and that's all that really matters sense the nested isn't needed. While that may be generally true I find it helpful to see the structure panel and the tags that will be generated as it gives me an idea of the order of show each element -- perhaps I'm just use to it though.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
<EMAIL REMOVED>

703-637-8957 (o)
Follow us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Blog | Newsletter


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Chagnon | PubCom
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2015 10:34 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Untagged PDF doc with table structure

Since version 5.5, there's been no need to use the structure pane for accessible PDFs from InDesign. Just use the tools built into current versions of InDesign. It's worth upgrading to the latest version of InDesign, ver. CS 2014, because the export of accessible PDFs is more accurate. You're spending an awful lot more labor doing it the old way with an outdated version of the software.

Accessible PDFs don't need a nested, XML-like structure because at this time, the PDF's tag tree is read sequentially, so which tag is nested inside which is ignored by screen readers and other AT.

You can read a detailed tutorial I wrote for InDesign Magazine a few years ago for step-by-step instructions: Edition #46 February-March 2012 at www.InDesignMagazine.com Today's InDesign creates a more accurate PDF now than when I wrote this article, but the steps and tools remain the same.

Repeating what I wrote in a previous post regarding tags from InDesign:

In InDesign, certain tags must be set in the export tag options for each Paragraph Style:
Headings 1 through 6.
Artifacts (for text).
For everything else, leave the export tag options set to Auto. Auto does recognize:
- Tables (and if you've set repeating headers, it will put in the TH tag).
- Lists, both numbered and bulleted, as long as you've formatted them with a paragraph style setting bullets/numbers. No hand formatting.
- Hyperlinks if you've used the hyperlink utility.
- TOCs if you've used InDesign's TOC utility.
- Figures (add the Alt-text through the Object Export Options utility or through Adobe Bridge).
- And pretty much the core of any InDesign document.

Except for grouped items, anchored text frames, un-hyperlinked footnotes, un-hyperlinked indexes, and a whole lot more advanced features, the basics of an InDesign document are tagged correctly in the PDF.

And I have a hands-on class in creating accessible InDesign layouts & PDFs in a few weeks. Two seats are available for online distance learners. Contact me off-list if you'd like more information.

--Bevi Chagnon

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers For publishing technologies
| Acrobat PDF | Digital Media | XML and Automated Workflows GPO | Print
| | Desktop Publishing | Sec. 508 Accessibility | EPUBs
— — —




-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Ryan E. Benson
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2015 8:48 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Untagged PDF doc with table structure

>Which makes 20. There are a number of inline styles that aren't
supported (e.g. code, quote) and there may be others that are supported that I'm not sure of (e.g. TOC).
>I think that the situation is a little better than you are characterizing.

I haven't dug around in the new docs, but the old documents said, to quickly know what tags INDD will reliably carry over to a PDF is to run the untagged items via the structure pane. This gives you P H
H1-H6
Article
Artifact
Root/Document

Other things like tables and lists were kind of a flip of a coin. I noticed better support for lists in CS6, but this is akin to "don't worry about it, just trust us." However, I will mention that if you click the list icon, it will be brought over as a list. You cannot do this with headings from what I can tell, and didn't touch tables. Working with graphic artists, they are less likely to do this, because 1- their formal training didn't cover this
- not Adobe's fault. 2- they only have a few days to do a job, so setting up stuff on every project is beyond a chore.

--
Ryan E. Benson

On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Ryan,
> Comments below.
>
> I was trying to cut out the jargon. Most people do not know there are
> styles and tags within inDesign, in my experience. If they just make a
> style, and lazily name it h1, that gets exported and mapped to P - in
> the two sample files I tried - in CS6. The user has 3 options. 1-
> properly named styles. 2- Open up the style, choose the right tag via
> export tag options. 3- open the tags pane, use the map styles to tags
> option, and map it. This assumes the user opened up the structure
> pane, and used the "add untagged items" option. This also creates the
> known tags to inDesign - which is 9.
>
> > InDesign supports a a lot of standard PDF tags.
> 9 of 34 is 26%. Not sure if you call that a lot. Now if a user sets up
> their document properly, and use the built in features, of course that
> goes up. In my experience, working with designers, who have a degree,
> and trained inDesign, don't do or know this.
>
> Off hand I count:
> P
> H
> H1
> H2
> H3
> H4
> H5
> H6
> TABLE
> THEAD
> TBODY
> TR
> TH
> TD
> LIST
> LI
> SPAN
> Document
> Article
> Section
>
>
> Which makes 20. There are a number of inline styles that aren't
> supported (e.g. code, quote) and there may be others that are
> supported that I'm not sure of (e.g. TOC).
>
> I think that the situation is a little better than you are characterizing.
>
> AWK
>
> --
> Ryan E. Benson
>
> On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 6:13 PM, Olaf Drümmer < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> > Hi Ryan,
> >
> > On 18 Feb 2015, at 23:50, Ryan E. Benson < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> >
> > > InDesign only recognizes a handful of standard PDF tags. I can't
> > > find the list right now, but I am pretty sure it is in the help.
> > > InDesign knows <Table>, <Tr> and <Td>, for example, but not <TH>
> > > or something like
> > that.
> >
> > it does handle <TH> quite well (at least for column headers).
> >
> > > PDF tags are case sensitive, so if you create an h1 Tag for your
> > > inDesign document, it gets mapped to the <P> tag in the PDF.
> > > However, creating the
> > > H1 tag in inDesign, it correctly gets mapped to H1 in the PDF.
> >
> > nope. What you actually do is do assign a certain tag to your style
> > sheet which then gets used during export (and via role mapping in
> > the resulting PDF. The list offered here consists of only H1 through
> > H6 and P (yep, that's it, except for <H> which you do not want to
> > use, and
> 'Artifact'
> > which is not a tag, but can be handy at times). Most other stuff is
> > just handled properly by Indesign, at least for stuff like lists and
> > tables (with some limitations - e.g. no row headers, no complex
> > table
> > structures) and footnotes and figures and links and (CS 6 or newer)
> > form
> fields.
> >
> > Some of the glaring omissions are lack of support for table of
> > contents (TOC / TOCI), something as easy as Caption, or BlockQuote,
> > Quote, Formula (accompanied by lack of support for something like
> MathML) and a few others.
> >
> > So the statement
> > > InDesign only recognizes a handful of standard PDF tags.
> >
> > has to be turned into its opposite:
> > > InDesign supports a a lot of standard PDF tags.
> >
> > with the following addition:
> > > With some very unfortunate [seemingly easy to implement/support]
> > omissions, like support for Caption, or BlockQuote, Quote, Formula
> > and a few others.
> >
> >
> > Olaf
> >
> >
> > > > > > list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
> >
> > > list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
> > > list messages to <EMAIL REMOVED>
>