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Thread: Accessible PDF Question
Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)
From: Brian Lovely
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 8:16AM
Subject: Accessible PDF Question
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Hey Y'all
I'm looking at a pay calendar PDF for a client. Each month is a table, and each day of the month is a data cell.
They have various graphic elements in certain cells to indicate the importance of certain days. They have a right arrow and left arrow to indicate the beginning and ending of a pay period. They have a clock face graphic to indicate that corrections are due by noon of that day.
They also have a background color to indicate days they are closed, and a heavy data cell outline to indicate pay day.
They originally said the document could be a web page, and I told them that was the best idea because, although the meaning of the arrow and clock graphics could be conveyed via alt text, the meaning of the background color and heavy outline could not. A web page could use ARIA to add the pay day and business closed descriptions to the data cells.
Now they have informed me that the document has to be a PDF and I'm stumped about how to make the background color and bold data cell outline accessible.
Is there any sort of ARIA-like hidden text available to indicate these special days in a PDF? Is there anyway to add additional info to the data cell besides the text content? Does anyone have any other solutions?
Thank you,
Brian Lovely
From: Jon Brundage
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 8:21AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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Hi Brian-
I have inserted tags into a PDF that get read by screen readers yet are not visible. It's kinda like hidden text in HTML. You might just try inserting complimentary information that way.
Jon
From: Paul Rayius
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 8:22AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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Hi Brian,
You "could" put the colored background (presumably it's a "Path" or "XObject" or something similar) in a Figure tag, inside the appropriate TD, and give it Alt text to describe what that background is supposed to mean. You could do the same for the cell borders. Similarly, you could place other "things" (non-technical term, I know!) in Span tags inside TD (or TH) cells and give them Alt text, as needed, to describe the "thing" and what's important about it.
A word of caution - do not assign Alt text directly to a TD or TH. If you do, many Ats out there will stop treating the table like a table! Use Span, Figure, etc., as appropriate, inside the TD or TH cells as needed.
I hope that helps,
Paul
Paul Rayius, ADS
VP, Customer Support and Training
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From: Duff Johnson
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 8:24AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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> On Apr 10, 2025, at 10:16, Brian Lovely via WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Now they have informed me that the document has to be a PDF and I'm stumped about how to make the background color and bold data cell outline accessible.
The good news: you can tag any given content (even a background vector for a cell), and add Alt Text to any tag.
The bad news: to do this right, each element of content requiring such alt text must be contained in a dedicated tag.
Oh.. .and, what Paul just said. :-)
Duff.
From: Philip Kiff
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 9:32AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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Paul and Duff provide helpful tagging suggestions.
I would add a note of caution about the use of colouring, shading, and
bold alone in the visual design - regardless of whether it is a PDF or a
web page. Folks who are colour-blind or who have low vision may find
background shading difficult to distinguish. Likewise relying solely on
the distinction between heavy vs regular cell outlines or on bold vs
plain text to signify something important to visual users can create
problems.
Technically, if the background shading is strong enough to pass minimum
colour contrast guidelines, then such a design can pass accessible
testing. And using bold vs plain will usually also be considered to pass
minimum guidelines. Not sure how I would evaluate the use of heavy cell
outlines vs regular ones.
But while they might minimally "pass" some tests, I'd still generally
advise caution about relying only those specific design elements for
visual users, and try to find a way to create more distinct differences
- changes in font, dashed vs solid lines, capitalization vs lower cases,
fully reversed colours, etc.
Phil.
On 2025-04-10 10:16 a.m., Brian Lovely via WebAIM-Forum wrote:
> [....] I'm looking at a pay calendar PDF for a client. Each month is a table, and each day of the month is a data cell. [....] They also have a background color to indicate days they are closed, and a heavy data cell outline to indicate pay day.
From: Duff Johnson
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 10:08AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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I agree with Philip.
From the description, this case seems likely to be a text-book example of content that’s optimized exclusively for visual purposes without regard for accessibility.
The advice Paul and I offered comes from the place of having to deal with whatever the designer did (past tense). But you cannot fix every accessibility problem with tagging.
Precisely as Philip notes, the better solution is to back up and reconsider the design to ensure that it doesn’t exclude users before worrying about the tagging.
Duff.
> On Apr 10, 2025, at 11:32, Philip Kiff via WebAIM-Forum < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Paul and Duff provide helpful tagging suggestions.
>
> I would add a note of caution about the use of colouring, shading, and bold alone in the visual design - regardless of whether it is a PDF or a web page. Folks who are colour-blind or who have low vision may find background shading difficult to distinguish. Likewise relying solely on the distinction between heavy vs regular cell outlines or on bold vs plain text to signify something important to visual users can create problems.
>
> Technically, if the background shading is strong enough to pass minimum colour contrast guidelines, then such a design can pass accessible testing. And using bold vs plain will usually also be considered to pass minimum guidelines. Not sure how I would evaluate the use of heavy cell outlines vs regular ones.
>
> But while they might minimally "pass" some tests, I'd still generally advise caution about relying only those specific design elements for visual users, and try to find a way to create more distinct differences - changes in font, dashed vs solid lines, capitalization vs lower cases, fully reversed colours, etc.
>
> Phil.
>
> On 2025-04-10 10:16 a.m., Brian Lovely via WebAIM-Forum wrote:
>> [....] I'm looking at a pay calendar PDF for a client. Each month is a table, and each day of the month is a data cell. [....] They also have a background color to indicate days they are closed, and a heavy data cell outline to indicate pay day.
>
From: Hayman, Douglass
Date: Thu, Apr 10 2025 10:29AM
Subject: Re: - Accessible PDF Question
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Glad to see this thread.
My college had a number of PDFs I was working to either remediate myself or job out to some more qualified firm. A number of our calendars were a mess to content with for those without vision.
They might have a PDF with 6 tables or 12, each representing a month. None of the table cells were properly marked up and might have just had a color in a cell to represent something like the start or end of the quarter or, a pay day. In many cases there might have only been one item of importance for a month.
Likewise, the document might have been for campus events and only had a few items in a month to relate.
It would have been somewhat easy to supplement the visual with something along these lines:
April 2025
7th, first day of classes
14th welcome event with presentation by student clubs
May 2025
5th, last day to drop classes
And so on where the month and year would be a header, the entries below those as an unordered list. And perhaps keep the grids for those who are sighted and prefer either or both ways of representing information.
Doug Hayman
IT Accessibility Coordinator
Information Technology
Olympic College
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
(360) 475-7632
From: Laura Roberts
Date: Fri, Apr 11 2025 11:50AM
Subject: Re: Accessible PDF Question
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I'd encourage them to put text in the source document for the shaded boxes.
Do they have a reason for not doing so?
Best regards,
Laura Roberts
413-588-8422
On Thu, Apr 10, 2025, 10:16 AM Brian Lovely via WebAIM-Forum <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hey Y'all
>
> I'm looking at a pay calendar PDF for a client. Each month is a table, and
> each day of the month is a data cell.
>
> They have various graphic elements in certain cells to indicate the
> importance of certain days. They have a right arrow and left arrow to
> indicate the beginning and ending of a pay period. They have a clock face
> graphic to indicate that corrections are due by noon of that day.
>
> They also have a background color to indicate days they are closed, and a
> heavy data cell outline to indicate pay day.
>
> They originally said the document could be a web page, and I told them
> that was the best idea because, although the meaning of the arrow and clock
> graphics could be conveyed via alt text, the meaning of the background
> color and heavy outline could not. A web page could use ARIA to add the pay
> day and business closed descriptions to the data cells.
>
> Now they have informed me that the document has to be a PDF and I'm
> stumped about how to make the background color and bold data cell outline
> accessible.
>
> Is there any sort of ARIA-like hidden text available to indicate these
> special days in a PDF? Is there anyway to add additional info to the data
> cell besides the text content? Does anyone have any other solutions?
>
>
> Thank you,
> Brian Lovely
>
>