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Re: [External Sender] Citation superscript

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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Nov 23, 2019 7:34AM

Regarding superscripts:
Some programs (MS Word for example) automatically shrink the font-size
of superscripted text slightly. When possible, I increase the font size
back again to make the superscript numbers more readable. In MS Word or
InDesign you can create a style that you can apply to do this. I have
noticed that some organizations place superscripted citation numbers
inside brackets, and some do the same thing without using superscript at
all. I don't recall having seen any guidance or recommendations
regarding these practices written down anywhere.

Regarding footnotes and how to format them in a PDF:

Using in-page links as several other have described is one method, and
that formatting is creating by default for properly formatted footnotes
in current versions of MS Word when you use Acrobat DC Pro to generate a
PDF. However, there seem to be issues with some screen readers sometimes
in accessing such in-page links. Maybe this is related to Jonathan's
suggestion that this might be connected to how the PDF specification
defines links (I didn't know that!).

Another common practice when "remediating" PDFs with footnotes is to
move the tags containing the footnote content up in the tag order so
that the footnote content follows directly after the footnote number
appears in the text, or directly after the paragraph within which the
footnote number appears. For screen readers, then, it won't matter if
the in-page links work, since the content appears immediately afterwards
to the screen reader regardless. By leaving the in-page links, you also
serve low vision users who may employ high magnification levels, since
it still allows them to click on in-page links that will move the
visible cursor location. There are a couple places where you can find
accessibility specialists recommending that footnote content be moved in
the tag order to appear beside their respective citations/references,
but I don't think that this is required by the PDF/UA standard. It is
more of a best practice, than a standard, I think.

Finally:
Someone named Ted Page wrote up a blog post suggesting that perhaps a
JavaScript solution is the best way of formatting footnotes in a PDF.
Although I personally have neither implemented nor tested this method, I
nevertheless suspect that some variation of it could well be the model
that most closely approaches the ideal method currently available for
screen reader users using current technologies. I have not seen any
guidance or recommendations to this effect anywhere, this is just my
random opinion. Here is a link to Ted Page's post:
https://accessible-digital-documents.com/blog/accessible-pdf-footnotes-endnotes/

Phil.

On 2019-11-22 19:25, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> If I recall correctly -- in PDF 1.7 you can't have a link move focus move to a tag -- only a page ore view. Oddly enough you can move to specific tags with bookmarks. I believe newer versions of the PDF format address this -- but the support by tools may not be there yet.
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> Jonathan
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