WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Full URLs in PDF documents

for

From: Karen McCall
Date: Feb 28, 2023 3:52AM

I agree. When I teach accessible/tagged PDFs, I have links in the body of the document/content have Alt Text so that the flow of reading/comprehension is not interrupted when using screen readers or TTS tools.

I approach citations differently. Footnotes and Endnotes are references and I don't use Alt Text for them. Their role in the document is to provide the reference sitsite/citation.

While we can skip over long web addresses using keyboard commands, it gets tricky if the long web address is in the paragraph instead of at the end. We're never quite sure if we've skipped some text while trying to skp the long web address. I also think that someone not using a screen reader would be able to hover the mouse over the link and see the Alt Text in the body of the text which would mean that they didn't have to search the long web address to see where it would take them. 😊

This is why we can't specify that "all links" are treated the same way in a document/content. We have to look at the role that link playes in the document. Is it part of the body text or a TOC or is it a reference?

As I think I've stated on this list before, adding Alt Text to links in a TOC breaks the TOC for those using screen readers unless we add the page number reference to the Alt Text. Thinking of a TOC that goes on for pages, this is just too much remediation needed in addition to creating an accessibility barrier.

Cheers, Karen


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Philip Kiff
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 12:14 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Full URLs in PDF documents

Good question. I've wondered about the best way to manage these as well, Christine.

In the case of footnotes and references, I currently retain the full URL and generally don't add any extra coding.

In some cases, though - especially when a full URL appears in the main body of a document - I have added alternative text to the link that matches the page title of the actual page that is linked in the URL.
Whether or not that is useful depends on the intended audience and context of the document where the URL appears. So I use my judgment by examining the context on a case-by-case basis. I'm curious how others manage this.

If I'm able to recommend edits to the actual text being tagged, then I encourage content creators to precede such URLs by the actual page title in the regular body text, rather than relying on alternative text. That way the URL then appears after a colon or in parentheses following the title of the page referred to, which makes the URL more readable and understandable for everyone anyways.

For a URL that appears in a full citation like in an academic footnote or bibliography, I don't add any extra tagging. In those cases, the title is already included in the same location in plain text, so I figure any extra info in tags is redundant.

Also, I would note that for any PDF that is intended to be printed, the inclusion of full URLs can be very important, since a user may need to manually type in the full URL from a printed page. So there are some cases where I think the purpose of the document requires that you absolutely should include a full URL, even if it is clunky and awkward for everyone.

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On 2023-02-27 11:47, Christine Hogenkamp wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> My team and I were discussing URLs in PDFs and instances where you
> might have the full URL instead of a descriptive text for the link,
> such as footnotes or references section in a report. The discussion
> was whether it was OK to have an occasional instance of a full URL
> like that as-is, or whether there are any steps we should take in the
> formatting of the URL (ie InDesign has an alt text option we could
> place descriptive text or instructive text). The question was
> basically, was it too annoying or cumbersome for the reader to have to listen to the whole URL?
>
> My opinion in the matter was that I thought it was OK to have a full
> URL as-is, as long as the URL was in a place where the reader could
> get context why the URL was there (ie under a header "References" or
> similar) and my feeling about full URLs is that most screen reader
> users would probably know how to skip to the next element on the page,
> if they found themselves listening to "H T T P colon backslash
> backslash W W W ..." etc. so that we wouldn't be trapping them in having to listen to the whole URL.
>
> I also thought it might not be ideal to use alt text because that's
> not how the text presents visually, so that might be confusing to
> users who can read some of the visible text themselves but also use a
> screen reader too as additional help. Usually our goal is to have the
> screen reader experience match the visual experience, as much as reasonably possible.
>
> So I welcome any thoughts on this, since so many of you are more
> experienced in accessible PDFs than I am and have dealt with all the
> little particular elements and how they should be formatted. Thanks in advance!
>
> *x*
> *Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
> Front-end Developer
> ContextCreative.com
> <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fconte
> xtcreative.com%2F&data%7C01%7C%7C08758304624a47053fed08db18e5fbdb%7
> C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638131148285320193%7CUnkno
> wn%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiL
> CJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SJtDxYMusH3uqBCAZ2H8mkTT76KIbA8EAv
> sbOmPruRU%3D&reserved=0>
> > > https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flist.w
> ebaim.org%2F&data%7C01%7C%7C08758304624a47053fed08db18e5fbdb%7C84df
> 9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638131148285320193%7CUnknown%7C
> TWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVC
> I6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=VQ7M%2FFIfawEHsjcS9%2BhytiSMxxc4afXdmR4
> YLATwE40%3D&reserved=0 List archives at
> https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebaim
> .org%2Fdiscussion%2Farchives&data%7C01%7C%7C08758304624a47053fed08d
> b18e5fbdb%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638131148285320
> 193%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTi
> I6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=WIinuAlysiM%2FeAdUmzVwO
> 3n1NwFsFIgftFhciZhP%2BhE%3D&reserved=0
>