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Reference tag with ALT text

for

From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Apr 22, 2020 8:03AM

I just saw something I never knew could be done. Works in JAWS, but I'd like to know if this is legit.
In a PDF table there's a numbered footnote reference. The author created a Note tag around the number and added an empty Reference tag inside the Note. The Reference tag has as its Alt text the actual content of the footnote. The content is not in a Paragraph tag inside the Reference, as I have usually seen. There's no tag elsewhere in the tag tree for that content. It's just the Alt text of the empty Reference tag.
Obviously this forces the user to hear the note while reading the main content, but on the plus side this supports the note's content being reused multiple times since it's just adding multiple Reference tags with the same Alt text.
Is this a common practice? Do all screen readers support Alt text on a Reference tag?
Thanks,
Alan