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Re: Full URLs in PDF documents

for

From: Karen McCall
Date: Feb 28, 2023 4:05AM

This is why I started, years ago, to provide the long web addresses in footnotes or Endnotes so that I optimized the accessibility of the content.

While reading the main body text, Alt Text or contextual links are used, but I also add Footnotes or Endnotes with the long web addresses in case someone wants or needs to print the document and needs to know the web address in a discussion or some other scenario.

Not all documents are suited to this solution. For those that are, it is a good solution and only takes a few seconds to implement while writing the document.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of L Snider
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2023 1:49 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Full URLs in PDF documents

It is a good question. Some documents are meant to be printed, and in those a full URL is needed. Even though I always advise to do descriptive text over URLs, it isn't always possible. Now in the case of URLs, if you have control over them, try to make them descriptive. at least then people who can't see them can get an idea of what the linked page is about...Also I avoid URL shorteners when I can, in 10 years many won't be around and they are dead (there are ones that are more permanent, but really nothing is permanent after 20 years or so).

I find the link issue is totally context dependent in documents, in my experience try to go for the descriptive text. Also if there is any way to change a sentence that has a URL in the middle of it, and moving it to the end-that can work too. Just depends on how much you control.

Just my two cents!

Cheers

Lisa

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 12:48 PM Christine Hogenkamp < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 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
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