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Re: Description lists in PDF using LI, Lbl and LBody

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From: Steve Green
Date: Jul 7, 2021 8:18AM

It doesn't feel right to me. As Duff said in his article, the <Lbl> tag is intended to specify the semantics of the list, not contain data.

That said, PAC3 and the CommonLook PDF Validator don't report any errors and screen reader behaviour seems reasonable, so I can't see a strong argument against the technique other than it's ugly (which probably won't bother people who want to use the technique).

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Philip Kiff
Sent: 07 July 2021 13:48
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Description lists in PDF using LI, Lbl and LBody

My impression is that using the L/LI list tag structure in PDFs for something that corresponds to a definition list in HTML is a permitted and expected use. But I've personally not used it very often. Then again, I don't use DL definition lists in HTML very often either.

There should be no issues with PAC 3 flagging such lists if they are well-formed in other ways. Here is a link to a publicly available document I worked on last year. The PDF version uses tags a glossary starting on page 87 (Appendix B) using the L/LI list structure, with Lbl tagging the word or phrase and LBody tagging its definition:
https://www.emergencymanagementontario.ca/english/emcommunity/response_resources/plans/provincial_emergency_response_plan.html

The example of a data pair like "Median house price" sounds more likely to fit a table structure - if it's data then a table is appropriate. You don't need a visible table grid to mark a list as a two-column table.

Phil

On 2021-07-06 22:55, Jonathan Avila wrote:
> Hi all,
> Many years ago Duff Johnson had written an article on considering use of PDF list semantics for description lists (e.g. akin to the DL element in HTML).
> http://duff-johnson.com/articles/lists-contrasting-html-with-pdf/ I wanted to get people's thought on using the Lbl and LBody within a LI list item for data pairs as labels and values, etc. I've noted that when I run an example which users words in the Lbl PAC 3 seems to flag it as potentially a misuse of the structure. Thoughts? Is this a good or bad implementation?
>
> An example might be a word and definition or a data pair such as "Median house price" in the lbl and the cost in $ in the LBody.
> Jonathan
>
> > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
>