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Re: Empty <P> Tags For Spacing

for

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Feb 8, 2022 7:01AM

> On Feb 8, 2022, at 01:05, Steve Green < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> I'm not convinced it's a WCAG non-conformance, and I'm not sure it's even a nuisance. Does it have any impact on anyone?

…and even if it does have an impact it seems like a AT problem, not a file-format issue.

> Empty <P> tags are a big problem in PDFs, though. They cause JAWS (and possibly other screen readers) to say "blank", which we regard as a user experience issue, not a WCAG non-conformance.

IMO, this is a description of what screen-readers are choosing to do… and they should choose otherwise. That a PDF might include an empty <P> does not force AT to present it.

> More importantly, if they occur in lists, they break the list structure, which definitely is a WCAG non-conformance. We see this a lot in PDFs created in Word and PowerPoint.

Yes; people use paragraphs within lists. It is for this reason that PDF 2.0 includes the concept of a “Continued list” to provide support for this very common use-case.

Duff.