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Thread: URL Question
Number of posts in this thread: 10 (In chronological order)
From: Campbell, John
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 11:38AM
Subject: URL Question
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In a pdf document when a URL is hyperlinked what are best practices? Some
say to hyperlink with the URL in parentheses after.
Thanks,
John
--
John R. Campbell, MS, ATP, RET
Director of Accessibility & Access
Lehigh Carbon Community College
4525 Education Park Drive
Schnecksville PA 18078
http://www.lccc.edu
Office: 610.769.1337
Office: LB34
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*"Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much." - Helen Keller*
From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 12:28PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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John asked: "In a pdf document when a URL is hyperlinked what are best practices? Some say to hyperlink with the URL in parentheses after."
In the best case, I prefer create the link using text that clearly states where the link will take you. Then you can do one of two things with the actual URL. Either as John mentioned place it inside of parentheses, or place the links at the bottom of the page using footnotes.
URLS often fail to provide a clear indication of the destination of the link. However since PDF and Office documents are often distributed as paper documents having the actual URL also available makes perfect sense.
Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)
From: Chagnon | PubCom.com
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 12:34PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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It depends, John.
We recommend either of the following techniques to our clients, depending upon how the content is written. When PDFs are printed, they lose their electronic hyperlinks so you must ensure that anyone reading the printed PDF can see the full URL. This is a good example of where the guidance of WCAG that works well for websites, often fails for Office documents and PDFs.
#1: (with hyperlinks on the "meaningful" text "View our catalog" as well on the URL)
View our catalog [www.catalog.com]
#2: (better grammatically, the entire phrase is one hyperlink, from "View" to ".com:")
View our catalog at www.catalog.com
It's best to set the hyperlinks in the source program, such as MS Word or Adobe InDesign, because creating and controlling them in the PDF after it has been exported is a bit tedious.
--Bevi Chagnon
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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 12:40PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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> John asked: "In a pdf document when a URL is hyperlinked what are best practices? Some say to hyperlink with the URL in parentheses after."
>
> In the best case, I prefer create the link using text that clearly states where the link will take you. Then you can do one of two things with the actual URL. Either as John mentioned place it inside of parentheses, or place the links at the bottom of the page using footnotes.
The difficulty with placing the link in footnotes, with current-generation end-user software (both creation and consuming) that I'm aware of, is that most software does not handle footnotes well in terms of ensuring the PDF is genuinely accessible (i.e., text and URL are logically associated)..
So I'd suggest that at this time, to ensure that the URL is associated with text for AT purposes, it makes more sense to include the URL inline.
> URLS often fail to provide a clear indication of the destination of the link. However since PDF and Office documents are often distributed as paper documents having the actual URL also available makes perfect sense.
Totally agree with this - but I do suggest (today) that inline URLs make for a lot less remediation of tags after PDF generation.
Duff.
From: Patterson, David K (ITD)
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 12:57PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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Hi -
I agree with Mike that you need to have a link text that describes what the user will see when they click on the link. It should make sense and be easy to understand where the link will take you.
Then, then embed the link within the link text itself. It can sometimes be confusing to have to hear the complete hyperlink that has been placed after the description within parentheses, especially if it is a complex link.. But. It's true that PDF and Office documents are often printed so placing the hyperlinks at the bottom of a page within a footnote makes sense too.
Remember that screen readers are able to make a list of all the links inside a document. This helps the user quickly find the link they are looking for. If the link text is meaningful, the right link is easily found.
David K. Patterson
HRCMS Accessibility Manager
Senior Accessibility Business Systems Analyst
Manager â Assistive Technology Laboratory
One Ashburton Place - Room 1601
Boston, MA 02108
Phone: 617-626-4650
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Web: www.mass.gov/itd/
From: Caid, Lisa M.
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 1:03PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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Is there a way to stop Acrobat from converting a non-linked URL in a Word document, into a linked URL, upon conversion to PDF?
I prefer to make a link descriptive, and keep URLs unlinked, but Acrobat automatically hyperlinking URLS during PDF conversions from Word makes this difficult, in my experience.
Sincerely,
Lisa Caid
Accessibility Coordinator
West Texas A&M University
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(806) 651-1241
IT Service Center (806) 651-4357
If you need email content or attachments in alternate formats for accessibility, please send your contact information and the specifics of your request to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = .
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 1:17PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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In Acrobat Pro DC you can go into Edit PDF tools from the Tools Task Pane and under the Link tool, choose to remove all Links from the document. This is fast and removes all Links. Or you can remove links on certain pages.
Cheers, Karen
From: Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC)
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 1:16PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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If the URL is not a link in the source document then it will not normally be a link in the PDF if you are using Acrobat Pro for the conversion. However, Adobe Reader and Acrobat Pro and Standard make URLs within documents clickable. I don't think that as a document creator you can override that behavior.
The URL will not be included in the keyboard tab ring nor will they show up in a links list when using screen reading software. If you have created real links using meaningful text those meaningful links will be included in the tab ring and will show up in link lists.
Mike Moore
Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Health and Human Services Commission
Civil Rights Office
(512) 438-3431 (Office)
From: Caid, Lisa M.
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 1:29PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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Awesome. Thanks, Michael, Karen McCall, and all.
Sincerely,
Lisa Caid
Accessibility Coordinator
West Texas A&M University
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(806) 651-1241
IT Service Center (806) 651-4357
If you need email content or attachments in alternate formats for accessibility, please send your contact information and the specifics of your request to = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = .
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Tue, Feb 02 2016 1:29PM
Subject: Re: URL Question
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You can add Alt Text to the links in Acrobat.
The links do have to be activated using the keyboard. I thought you wanted to add them yourself, not simply eliminate them.
Cheers, Karen
Sent from my iPad
> On Feb 2, 2016, at 3:16 PM, Moore,Michael (Accessibility) (HHSC) < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> If the URL is not a link in the source document then it will not normally be a link in the PDF if you are using Acrobat Pro for the conversion. However, Adobe Reader and Acrobat Pro and Standard make URLs within documents clickable. I don't think that as a document creator you can override that behavior.
>
> The URL will not be included in the keyboard tab ring nor will they show up in a links list when using screen reading software. If you have created real links using meaningful text those meaningful links will be included in the tab ring and will show up in link lists.
>
> Mike Moore
> Accessibility Coordinator
> Texas Health and Human Services Commission
> Civil Rights Office
> (512) 438-3431 (Office)
>
>