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Thread: Vertical text

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From: James Buller
Date: Mon, Feb 08 2021 11:09AM
Subject: Vertical text
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Is there anything new on this?
I've seen a couple of things with angled/slanted or even vertical text but not had any formal basis to object.
They have tended to be on diagrams or posters.
Any thoughts on acceptable maximums?
How would one go about proposing it? Its similar in concept to WCAG 1.3.4: Orientation
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Sent: 21 January 2020 00:16
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Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Vertical text

> it's also unlikely to work with many text to speech tool

CSS transform is just styling. It does not affect the source of the text
so text-to-speech should not be affected.

> Would it fail Meaningful Sequence?

Again, the CSS is just styling so should not affect the reading
order/sequence. The DOM is still the same order.

That doesn't mean vertical text is not hard to read but I'm not sure I see
a strict failure.
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From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Mon, Feb 08 2021 12:52PM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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On 08/02/2021 18:09, James Buller wrote:
> Is there anything new on this?
> I've seen a couple of things with angled/slanted or even vertical text but not had any formal basis to object.
> They have tended to be on diagrams or posters.
> Any thoughts on acceptable maximums?
> How would one go about proposing it? Its similar in concept to WCAG 1.3.4: Orientation

If done via CSS, it could be overridden by users, the same way that
users can override text spacing that's too small/narrow (of course, the
technical knowledge required for this is non-trivial, but the concept's
the same).

I'd be quite careful proposing that WCAG should start messing even
further with trying to restrict visual styling possibilities...otherwise
you'll get to a point where designers/developers will just try to ignore
WCAG unless they're absolutely forced to follow it.

A softer approach of a best practice/suggestion/whitepaper would, to me,
be better than trying to crowbar in a "you're not allowed to have text
perpendicular to the regular reading orientation" or something.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

From: Murphy, Sean
Date: Thu, Feb 11 2021 11:02PM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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I think the browser should provide the accessibility option to re-orientate the text from vertical to horizontal which removes the need of understanding CSS. How this is actually done is for the people who know how. 😊

Regards
Sean Murphy

Sean Murphy | Senior Digital System specialist (Accessibility)
Telstra Digital Channels | Digital Systems
Mobile: 0405 129 739 | Desk: (02) 9866-7917
Digital Systems Launch Page
Accessibility Single source of Truth

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Fri, Feb 12 2021 1:47AM
Subject: Re: Vertical text
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On 12/02/2021 06:02, Murphy, Sean wrote:
> I think the browser should provide the accessibility option to re-orientate the text from vertical to horizontal

That's the easy part, probably. The hard part (whether it's browser
doing it, or some custom CSS) is also making sure the rest of the
page/layout doesn't completely explode after that's done.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke