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Re: Reference to not add formatting attributes to Heading tags

for

From: Duff Johnson
Date: May 2, 2022 1:55PM

> I think PDF/UA-2 is planning to relax the strict rules around skipping heading levels, so it should be consistent with WCAG....recommended best practice, but not required.

This is correct. Insofar as is possible, PDF/UA-2 eschews “content provisions” entirely, and focuses on syntax requirements, effectively deferring to other sources (e.g., WCAG) for recommendations regarding the author's content choices. Accordingly, the current draft of PDF/UA-2 allows a conforming document to include an illogical heading structure (e.g., skipped heading levels).

Duff.


> It's interesting that skipping heading levels will fail PAC3 in a PDF, but
> not WCAG (although it is strongly discouraged).
>
> On Fri, Apr 29, 2022, 2:03 PM glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
>> Mark, that's an interesting situation. I understand the desire to have
>> consistent heading levels and the last troubleshooting section is indeed at
>> an h3 level compared to the other h3s, but I would probably make *all* the
>> troubleshooting sections h4s so that I can always find them using the '4'
>> screen reader shortcut key, even if that means a heading level is skipped
>> (an h2 followed by an h4). That's just a personal choice but I would find
>> it easier to use the '4' shortcut to find a troubleshooting section then
>> use Shift+H to hear the heading that is immediately previous to the
>> troubleshooting section so that I have context.
>>
>> But to address JoAnn's original question, I agree with Patrick that, in
>> general, <strong> or <em> can be used in a heading without any trouble and
>> I have never heard that it shouldn't be done. But I presume the text you
>> want to emphasize with <strong> has a particular meaning? That is, you
>> want to emphasize part of the heading more than the other parts of the
>> heading? Depending on *why* you want to emphasize part of it, you might
>> have to convey that same importance to assistive technology too. While
>> <strong> is a semantic element, by default, a screen reader doesn't do
>> anything special with it so the user might not know it's there. The user
>> can certainly turn on formatting options with the screen reader so that
>> changes in fonts can be announced, but I don't know how often that's done.
>>
>> I hate the "it depends" answers but that seems to apply here. It depends
>> on why you want to emphasize part of the heading.
>>
>> <h2>some heading text <strong>that is really important</strong> that you
>> should pay attention to</h2>
>>
>> <h2>some heading text <span class="sr-only">(please read carefully)</span>
>> <strong>that is really important</strong> that you should pay attention
>> to</h2>
>>
>> The second example tries to convey the importance with screen reader text
>> but you almost need an "important text starts here" and an "end of
>> important text" segment.
>>
>> But maybe that will spark some ideas.
>> >> >> >> >>
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