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Re: Pdf heading levels

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From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Dec 5, 2017 1:23PM

Hi Lisa,

Right now the standards committee is in the discussion and review stage, so nothing is yet available for the public.



But I'd love to have your comments, ideas, and suggestions on how PDF/UA could be improved, especially comments from A T users, content creators, and accessibility experts that are on this list.



You can send your ideas directly to me and I'll pass them along to the committee. Let me know if you'd like to have your idea attributed to you (in other words, your name and position attached to the idea, or leave it anonymous).



--Bevi Chagnon



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Bevi Chagnon

www.PubCom.com | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing

print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs

consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services

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Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA standards









From: L Snider [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 1:29 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED> ; WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Pdf heading levels



Hi Bevi,

You mentioned that future PDF/UA tags are under development that may help. Is there any more information you can provide about this yet? I am curious where this is going down the line.

Cheers

Lisa



On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > > wrote:

Yes, you should care about the misordered sequence of headings. Jumping from H2 to H4 is considered an error.

In situations like yours, we consider headings like Quick Tips or Checklist to be H2s (sometimes H3 is if fits the hierarchical structure). They are primary subheadings, not minor ones, and they are followed by related copy so they are headings, not body text.

In some documents they may have a different appearance, such as a change of fonts, size, and color or in a separate text box to set them off from the rest of the page's content.

It is compliant to have variations of heading styles in Word to achieve both the semantic tagging and visual formatting you need in the PDF.

Example:
"Heading 2" / <H2> tag for regular subheads in the main body text.
"Heading 2 for Quick Tips" / <H2> for the tips box heading.

Note that both headings end up with <H2> tags in the PDF, although their visual appearance can differ.

There's no standard that says all H2 tags must look the same.

Future PDF/UA tags are under development that will help make this easier and clearer to accomplish, but for now, this method works and passes accessibility checkers, especially HHS's. Of course, everything with HHS depends upon which tester reviews your file as they each have their own opinion about things like this.

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Bevi Chagnon
www.PubCom.com <http://www.PubCom.com>; | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing
print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs
consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services
— — —
Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA standards