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Re: Word Documents header and footer areas not exported to PDFtag tree

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From: Karen McCall
Date: Dec 12, 2024 10:21AM

Page Header and Footer information from Word has to b manually tagged. It is not tagged automatically.

For those of us using screen readers, having to listen to the repetitive text at the top and bottom of each page is annoying at best and interferes with our ability to comprehend the content at worst. Imagine a paragraph that spans two pages interrupted in the middle by hearing the Page Header and Footer information. People who don't use screen readers aren't forced to read Page Headers and Footers and as a screen reader user, I don't want to be forced to read then either.

I recommend that if information is important for the understanding of the content, that it be put somewhere in the content of the document, especially contact information or information that indicates the content is authorized by the organization. One technique if to put the logo in the Page Header or Footer and the text somewhere on the first page. It doesn't have to be a heading, just an acknowledgement that the document is an official document.

For page numbers, PDFs use Page Labels which solves the problem of interrupting paragraphs, lists or tables with page number information. Page Labels are used by everyone to ensure they can get to the correct page and both JAWS and NVDA have keyboard commands for reading Page Labels.

So, page Header and Footer information are not tagged by design.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Karen