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Re: PDF and heading structure

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From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 23, 2024 8:27AM

I think people over-complicate this. The programmatic heading structure simply needs to reflect the visual heading structure. If there is an overarching visual heading for all the content, it should be the one and only <h1>. But not all documents contain such a visual heading. If there isn't one, it means the document contains a number of sections that are at the same logical level, in which case their headings should all be <h1>. That's absolutely fine.

If any of those sections contain subsections, their headings should be <h2> and so on.

Most of the guidance you will find typically assumes there is an overarching visual heading or states that there should be one. If there isn't one and you don't plan to add one, nothing else those sources say is relevant.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd