WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

RE: Recommended method for identifying a line in an "Accessible P DF"

for

From: julian.rickards@ndm.gov.on.ca
Date: Feb 21, 2003 2:42PM


<snip>
> Really? I think I must have missed some arguments in the
> discussion. Joe
> Clark's (sic) _book_ suggests alternatives like alt="--" for
> decorative
> horizontal lines, which isn't a good idea in my opinion but
> at least has
> some arguments to support it (text-only browsers). But what
> could possibly
> be the justification of alt="horizontal line"? It looks
> foolish on text
> only browsers. It sounds foolish (and potentially confusing)
> in speech.
> It's completely pointless when rendered by a graphic browser
> in no-images
> mode. What _could_ be the justification?
</snip>

Ok, maybe I made a mistake with regard to the author of the suggestion - I
checked the archives but they are a couple of weeks behind. If I have
attributed the suggestion to the wrong person, my appologies.

However, the original message was with regard to inserting alt text in an
accessible PDF, not a HTML document. My thoughts were that perhaps "---" (my
original alt text) may not be the best alt text so I was prodding this group
for another suggestion. Since the line was not a divider between sections,
"Next section" did not seem right. The line is decorative but without an alt
text, the Accessibility Checker plugin in Acrobat flagged it as being
without alt text.

Jules


----
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view list archives,
visit http://www.webaim.org/discussion/