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Re: PDF and heading structure

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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Oct 23, 2024 8:28AM

Hi Claire,

> I'm struggling with some PDF reviews as I'm flagging documents as non-compliant (under item 1.3.1: Heading tags are provided in appropriate sequence (<H1>, <H2>, <H3>, etc.)) because all headings in the documents are <H1> tags.

It’s acceptable (in the PDF 1.7 context) to use <H1> for the title and <H2> as the top “heading level” tag for the document.

If H1 has been used for the title, and If all headings in the document represent the same semantic level then H2 is correct for all such headings.

> I made the recommendation to tag the cover page title as <H1> and all subsequent headings as <H2>, <H3>, etc. (all headings after the cover page title visually look the same, so I didn't think the cover should be <H> and then all others <H1>)

Indeed, the title should never be <H> unless all the headings are <H> and the file is thus “strongly structured”, but this is an edge-case avoided by most.

I hope this is useful.

Duff Johnson
PDF Association
pdfa.org