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Re: PDF column tag

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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Jul 25, 2022 6:09PM


Hi Sean,

> I see the column attribute very important to inform the screen reader user of the document structure.

Can you help me to understand what you mean by “structure” in this case? Can you provide an example? As I understand “columns" (which flow down and then across the page, and are commonly seen in magazines and newspapers), they have little / no inherent semantics.

If, on the other hand, you mean that e.g., a left column contains content that maps to content on a center and right column, then a table structure would indeed seem appropriate.. but only in that case.

Last point: if the users' AT does not support PDF tags it won't matter how the document's structure is encoded with tables or as paragraphs and headings; they won't be able to perceive the structure as expressed via the tags.

Duff.