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Re: CommonLook Validator WCAG 2.0 AA failures

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From: Steve Green
Date: Oct 30, 2024 5:59AM

CommonLook Validator and PAC 2024 often report issues as WCAG non-conformances when they are not. However, those issues are invariably PDF/UA non-conformances, so you may need to fix them anyway. I am not aware of any user experience issues arising from these two reported non-conformances, but it literally takes less than one minute to fix them.

"Link Annotation doesn't define the Contents attribute" is easy to deal with. In Acrobat, launch the Use Print Production > Preflight tool. Click the spanner button in the middle of the menu. Open the “Interactive elements and properties” section and click “Create Content entry for Link annotations”. Then click the Fix button. This fixes all the links in the document.

"Parent tag of Link annotation doesn't define the Alt Attribute" is controversial because it arises from a mistake in the drafting of the PDF/UA specification. The authors admit it should never have been made a requirement. There is no rationale for it, and it doesn’t benefit anyone. No one can even remember why it’s in there. As such, I advise clients not to worry about it unless the need to demonstrate full PDF/UA conformance for some reason. However, the fix for the previous issue also fixes this one.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd