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From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Wed, Nov 09 2022 9:01AM
Subject: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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Hello everyone,

I've been working on an interesting issue with our accessible PDFs that are
done in InDesign: Our designers want to create bullet lists that use
symbols other than the default bullet symbol. InDesign lets you replace the
bullet symbol to a custom choice in the Paragraph Styles Options but the
problem seems to be that these other symbols are obviously not named as
"bullet" in the Unicode (I think?) so screen readers don't announce
"bullet" but say "black square" etc instead. There doesn't seem to be a
place in the custom bullet options to set a specific name for the
replacement symbol.

So I was googling to try to find a solution to help keep the bullet
formatting intact so exported as <L>, <LI>, <Lbl> etc (and it's still read
out as "List of X items, bullet..." etc) and came across Actual Text, that
it's an option in both Acrobat to add to an object and in InDesign, there
is an Actual Text field under the Tagged PDF tab in Object Export Options.
I read the ISO 32000 PDF section about Actual Text and I believe our custom
bullet usage would be an acceptable use to replace single symbols in the
live text.

The issue seems to be that bullets are not objects in Indesign, they are
treated as part of the text within the text frame and InDesign doesn't
offer the Object Export Options window for text, only for images or other
objects.

I was reading Bevi's very helpful (as usual) post in the archives from back
in 2013 that indicated this has been the case for quite some time:
https://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadb03&id$502#post7

Does anyone know if Indesign has added a way to assign Actual Text to
bullets within a text frame?

Right now the options seem to be:

1. Convert each bullet instance into outlined vector objects which can then
be given Actual Text in the Object Export Options but this will end up
breaking the list formatting that Indesign exports by default for lists
made using their bullets and numbering tool. So the list tags would have to
be fixed in Acrobat, which adds extra work since list tags are a bit more
complex to get all the inner tags correctly set up.

2. Export the file as a PDF and use Acrobat to set the Actual Text for each
custom bullet symbol to say "bullet" in the Object Properties window.

I would prefer if these custom bullets could be formatted in InDesign,
ideally in a way that can be saved and reused so that our designers can set
them once in the file and then we don't have to do manual fixing in Acrobat
after exporting the PDF. But I haven't yet come across a good solution in
InDesign that doesn't end up breaking the default bullet list formatting.

So if anyone knows of a better solution for creating custom bullets in
InDesign that will keep the list formatting and allow control for how the
symbols are announced, please let me know.

And it would also be good to get confirmation that if we do go the #2 "fix
in Acrobat" route, is our use of Actual Text on these symbols to say
"bullet" the correct way to use the Actual Text option? I don't want to
tell our designers to use that option and then it turns out that JAWS
ignores Actual Text or similar (we don't currently have access to all the
popular screen reader apps to test with) and as always, I am a bit hampered
because I'm not a professional remediation specialist, I am just a
developer trying to help our designers use InDesign and Acrobat correctly
ha ha

Thanks!

*x*
*Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
Front-end Developer
ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;

*We've moved! **Our new address is:*
*172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Nov 09 2022 10:27AM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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Here's an update on this topic from my last post in 2013:

1. Nothing has changed in InDesign. (Ha ha, no surprise there!) We can't set Alt Text nor Actual Text on text, only on graphics, and the bullet characters and glyphs are text, not graphics.

Everyone is S O L on this point.

So because Adobe does not give us a way to add actual text to the bullet glyph, when we choose a custom glyph like U+25B6, many screen readers and text-to-speech technologies will voice its full Unicode name, "Black Right-pointing Triangle, blah blah. Black Right-pointing Triangle, blahdy blah blah." Etc.

Gah! Our poor end users!

2. Make sure your designers choose a Unicode glyph, not some ascii glyph from an old TrueType or PostScript symbol font.

3. Acrobat has beefed up its tools for PDF glitches like this one. In the Preflight tool panel, look for the tool to "Set Labels in Unordered List to Generic Bullet Character" which will put "bullet" as the actual text on all bullet glyphs. Then select "Fix" in the very lower right of the panel. (Please don't edit this utility.)

FYI, there are several more fix-ups like this one in Acrobat Pro's Preflight utility that clean up a whole lotta under-the-hood programming in PDF files so that they now pass not only Acrobat's checker, but CommonLook and PAC, as well. One click, give it a few seconds, and boom...done. For the entire file. Even if we could do this in InDesign, it's faster in Acrobat.

WebAIM doesn't allow attachments so I've uploaded a quick graphic of instructions to our tutorial-blog. It isn't glamorous, just functional. The tutorial is at https://pubcom.com/blog/tutorials/acrobat/preflight-bullets/

Hope this helps out you and your team, Christine!

Per the PDF/UA-1 standard, Actual Text on the glyph is the correct procedure. Most screen readers should, by now, voice Actual Text but you never know when non-compliant technologies are used.

But that's the responsibility of the assistive technology, not us content creators. Everyone in the food chain — you, me, the assistive technologies, the end users — all must follow the standards to make the system work.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
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From: Philip Kiff
Date: Wed, Nov 09 2022 3:32PM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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Thanks for this great tip, Bevi, and for the great question, Christine!
I did not know about that tool: I've spent several lost hours going
through PDFs fixing bullets in the past couple years. I definitely need
to spend more time reviewing and discovering all the other options
hidden away in that Preflight tool!

Phil.

Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On 2022-11-09 12:27, = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = wrote:
> Here's an update on this topic from my last post in 2013:
> [....]
> 3. Acrobat has beefed up its tools for PDF glitches like this one. In the Preflight tool panel, look for the tool to "Set Labels in Unordered List to Generic Bullet Character" which will put "bullet" as the actual text on all bullet glyphs. Then select "Fix" in the very lower right of the panel. (Please don't edit this utility.)
>
> FYI, there are several more fix-ups like this one in Acrobat Pro's Preflight utility that clean up a whole lotta under-the-hood programming in PDF files so that they now pass not only Acrobat's checker, but CommonLook and PAC, as well. One click, give it a few seconds, and boom...done. For the entire file. Even if we could do this in InDesign, it's faster in Acrobat.

From: Colleen Gratzer
Date: Sun, Nov 13 2022 1:31PM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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To add to what Bevi said…

I've noticed this fixup will also change ordered/numbered lists, even
though it's not supposed to.

So I usually weigh the fixup option versus adding the actual text
manually, depending on which type of list the document has more of.


Colleen Gratzer
Accessibility Educator
http://creative-boost.com
Certified Branding Expert + Accessibility Specialist, Gratzer Graphics LLC
https://gratzergraphics.com

From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Mon, Nov 14 2022 1:50PM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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@Bevi: Thank you for all that glorious helpful info, I have bookmarked your
tutorial and tried it out, I can confirm that it worked like a charm: after
I used the Preflight tool, all custom bullets read out as "bullet" without
having to manually fix each list instance, just using the tool once.
Beautiful! As Phil mentioned, I also clearly need to look more closely at
the Preflight section of Acrobat to see what other helpful tools it can
offer for accessible PDFs.

@Colleen: Hi, can you expand on what you mean by "I've noticed this fixup
will also change ordered/numbered lists, even though it's not supposed to."
? How does it change ordered/numbered lists?

Thanks for all the help!

*x*
*Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
Front-end Developer
ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;

*We've moved! **Our new address is:*
*172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*

>
>

From: Colleen Gratzer
Date: Mon, Nov 14 2022 3:07PM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
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Sure, Christine.

What I meant is that it will add actual text to the numbers of a list
and voice them as "bullet" instead of the original number.

Colleen


On 11/14/22 3:50 PM, Christine Hogenkamp wrote:
> @Bevi: Thank you for all that glorious helpful info, I have bookmarked your
> tutorial and tried it out, I can confirm that it worked like a charm: after
> I used the Preflight tool, all custom bullets read out as "bullet" without
> having to manually fix each list instance, just using the tool once.
> Beautiful! As Phil mentioned, I also clearly need to look more closely at
> the Preflight section of Acrobat to see what other helpful tools it can
> offer for accessible PDFs.
>
> @Colleen: Hi, can you expand on what you mean by "I've noticed this fixup
> will also change ordered/numbered lists, even though it's not supposed to."
> ? How does it change ordered/numbered lists?
>
> Thanks for all the help!
>
> *x*
> *Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
> Front-end Developer
> ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;
>
> *We've moved! **Our new address is:*
> *172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*
>
>>
>>
> > > >

From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Tue, Nov 15 2022 10:06AM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
← Previous message | Next message →

@Colleen: Thank you for explaining and for flagging in the first place! I
did a test PDF to see what you meant and it did convert any numbered lists
to say "bullet" instead of the number.

Anyone feel free to correct my understanding, but I did some poking around
and it seems what the Preflight fix does is that it takes any list and adds
the default bullet symbol to the Actual Text box for each <Lbl> tag (this
is where bullets or numbers are supposed to go within the parent list tag)
so if I removed this bullet symbol from the Actual Text box then the list
number was read by NVDA as it should.

Part of the problem seems to be that in PDF tags, there is only the one
list tag. As a developer, I am used to having two types of list tags, one
for numbered lists <ol> and one for unnumbered lists <ul> but PDF tags only
has <L> and its inner tags for label, body, etc. So it's strange that the
Preflight fix would explicitly mention unordered tags when the reality is
that in PDF tag terms, all tags are unordered tags so it makes sense that
the fix adds the bullet symbol to every list regardless of whether it uses
a symbol or number to start each list item.

In my googling around, I have not come across a PDF standards approved way
to indicate that a list is a numbered list. So it would seem that Colleen's
manual fix option is the only way to remediate a PDF with numbered lists
when you use the Preflight fix. And whether you decide to use the Preflight
fix will depend on whether your PDF uses only unordered lists, or has a
mixture of unordered and ordered and how many of each.

It's just so strange that Adobe would create this fix but not consider what
would happen to ordered lists, they must be aware of the singular <L> and
that Acrobat would have no way to tell the difference between the two types
of lists unless they create such an option in either InDesign or Acrobat.
Puzzling!

*x*
*Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
Front-end Developer
ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;

*We've moved! **Our new address is:*
*172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*


On Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 5:07 PM Colleen Gratzer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Sure, Christine.
>
> What I meant is that it will add actual text to the numbers of a list
> and voice them as "bullet" instead of the original number.
>
> Colleen
>

From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Tue, Nov 15 2022 10:31AM
Subject: Re: Custom bullets in InDesign and Actual Text
← Previous message | No next message

In my previous email I meant to write "all lists are unordered lists"
instead of what I actually wrote: "all tags are unordered tags"
My apologies, this accessible PDF stuff makes my brain tired lol

*x*
*Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
Front-end Developer
ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;

*We've moved! **Our new address is:*
*172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*


On Tue, Nov 15, 2022 at 12:06 PM Christine Hogenkamp <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> @Colleen: Thank you for explaining and for flagging in the first place! I
> did a test PDF to see what you meant and it did convert any numbered lists
> to say "bullet" instead of the number.
>
> Anyone feel free to correct my understanding, but I did some poking around
> and it seems what the Preflight fix does is that it takes any list and adds
> the default bullet symbol to the Actual Text box for each <Lbl> tag (this
> is where bullets or numbers are supposed to go within the parent list tag)
> so if I removed this bullet symbol from the Actual Text box then the list
> number was read by NVDA as it should.
>
> Part of the problem seems to be that in PDF tags, there is only the one
> list tag. As a developer, I am used to having two types of list tags, one
> for numbered lists <ol> and one for unnumbered lists <ul> but PDF tags only
> has <L> and its inner tags for label, body, etc. So it's strange that the
> Preflight fix would explicitly mention unordered tags when the reality is
> that in PDF tag terms, all tags are unordered tags so it makes sense that
> the fix adds the bullet symbol to every list regardless of whether it uses
> a symbol or number to start each list item.
>
> In my googling around, I have not come across a PDF standards approved way
> to indicate that a list is a numbered list. So it would seem that Colleen's
> manual fix option is the only way to remediate a PDF with numbered lists
> when you use the Preflight fix. And whether you decide to use the Preflight
> fix will depend on whether your PDF uses only unordered lists, or has a
> mixture of unordered and ordered and how many of each.
>
> It's just so strange that Adobe would create this fix but not consider
> what would happen to ordered lists, they must be aware of the singular <L>
> and that Acrobat would have no way to tell the difference between the two
> types of lists unless they create such an option in either InDesign or
> Acrobat. Puzzling!
>
> *x*
> *Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
> Front-end Developer
> ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;
>
> *We've moved! **Our new address is:*
> *172 King St. E., Suite 300, Toronto, ON M5A 1J3*
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 14, 2022 at 5:07 PM Colleen Gratzer < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
>> Sure, Christine.
>>
>> What I meant is that it will add actual text to the numbers of a list
>> and voice them as "bullet" instead of the original number.
>>
>> Colleen
>>
>