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From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 9:24AM
Subject: Pdf heading levels
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Hi folks. I would appreciate your advice on the following.

I am working on a Word to PDF conversion. The document systematically has a structure of (for example) Heading Level 2 material followed by a "Quick Tips" or "Checklist" paragraph followed by several Heading Level 3 blocks of material. This repeats throughout some 90 pages. The Heading 2 and Heading 3 blocks really make sense as such, but my question is what to do about the "Quick Tips" or "Checklist" blocks. They deserve to be listed in the Table of Contents on their own lines, and the easiest way to do this is to make them Heading Level 4 items. They are certainly not at the same semantic level of the H3 items. But then I get a complaint from the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat that the heading levels are incorrectly nested. Should I ignore this complaint? Should I not assign any heading level to these blocks but rather indicate in some other fashion that they are "asides" or "sidebars"? They're not, really—they are written as continuous text in the stream of the presentation. So the real semantic order genuinely is
H1 – H2 – H4 – H3 – H3 – H4 – H3 – H3 etc.
I would like to know if there is reason to care about the (mis)ordering/nesting of the heading levels.

The client is ultimately HHS.

Thanks,
Alan

Center For Social Innovation
Needham, MA

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 9:59AM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
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Yes, you should care about the misordered sequence of headings. Jumping from H2 to H4 is considered an error.

In situations like yours, we consider headings like Quick Tips or Checklist to be H2s (sometimes H3 is if fits the hierarchical structure). They are primary subheadings, not minor ones, and they are followed by related copy so they are headings, not body text.

In some documents they may have a different appearance, such as a change of fonts, size, and color or in a separate text box to set them off from the rest of the page's content.

It is compliant to have variations of heading styles in Word to achieve both the semantic tagging and visual formatting you need in the PDF.

Example:
"Heading 2" / <H2> tag for regular subheads in the main body text.
"Heading 2 for Quick Tips" / <H2> for the tips box heading.

Note that both headings end up with <H2> tags in the PDF, although their visual appearance can differ.

There's no standard that says all H2 tags must look the same.

Future PDF/UA tags are under development that will help make this easier and clearer to accomplish, but for now, this method works and passes accessibility checkers, especially HHS's. Of course, everything with HHS depends upon which tester reviews your file as they each have their own opinion about things like this.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon
www.PubCom.com | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing
print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs
consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services
— — —
Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA standards

From: Steve Green
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 10:39AM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
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Whilst I would report this as a technical non-compliance, I would not be at all concerned if it was not fixed. It's an issue that comes up a lot and there is often no right answer.

In all the user testing I have done I have never seen anyone have a problem with minor non-compliances in the nesting of headings like this. Consistency in the use of headings is much more important.

As you have said, you could pass the accessibility test by removing the H4 heading but that would not benefit anyone. My experience is that few screen reader users are capable of maintaining a mental model to the level of accuracy that they would notice incorrect nesting, but they do have problems if headings are not applied where they should be.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 11:15AM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
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Remember, the client is HHS.
Do what they want or you might lose your grant funding from them.
They make the call about their material, not anyone else on this list or elsewhere.
And they are very strict about maintaining accessibility guidelines.

--Bevi Chagnon

From: L Snider
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 11:29AM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
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Hi Bevi,

You mentioned that future PDF/UA tags are under development that may help.
Is there any more information you can provide about this yet? I am curious
where this is going down the line.

Cheers

Lisa

On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Yes, you should care about the misordered sequence of headings. Jumping
> from H2 to H4 is considered an error.
>
> In situations like yours, we consider headings like Quick Tips or
> Checklist to be H2s (sometimes H3 is if fits the hierarchical structure).
> They are primary subheadings, not minor ones, and they are followed by
> related copy so they are headings, not body text.
>
> In some documents they may have a different appearance, such as a change
> of fonts, size, and color or in a separate text box to set them off from
> the rest of the page's content.
>
> It is compliant to have variations of heading styles in Word to achieve
> both the semantic tagging and visual formatting you need in the PDF.
>
> Example:
> "Heading 2" / <H2> tag for regular subheads in the main body text.
> "Heading 2 for Quick Tips" / <H2> for the tips box heading.
>
> Note that both headings end up with <H2> tags in the PDF, although their
> visual appearance can differ.
>
> There's no standard that says all H2 tags must look the same.
>
> Future PDF/UA tags are under development that will help make this easier
> and clearer to accomplish, but for now, this method works and passes
> accessibility checkers, especially HHS's. Of course, everything with HHS
> depends upon which tester reviews your file as they each have their own
> opinion about things like this.
>
> — — —
> Bevi Chagnon
> www.PubCom.com | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing
> print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs
> consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services
> — — —
> Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA
> standards
>
>
>

From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 12:39PM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
← Previous message | Next message →

I guess this is the bottom line here.
Thanks, Bevi and Steve for your input.
A

On 12/5/17, 1:15 PM, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

Remember, the client is HHS.
Do what they want or you might lose your grant funding from them.
They make the call about their material, not anyone else on this list or elsewhere.
And they are very strict about maintaining accessibility guidelines.

--Bevi Chagnon

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 1:23PM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Lisa,

Right now the standards committee is in the discussion and review stage, so nothing is yet available for the public.



But I'd love to have your comments, ideas, and suggestions on how PDF/UA could be improved, especially comments from A T users, content creators, and accessibility experts that are on this list.



You can send your ideas directly to me and I'll pass them along to the committee. Let me know if you'd like to have your idea attributed to you (in other words, your name and position attached to the idea, or leave it anonymous).



--Bevi Chagnon



— — —

Bevi Chagnon

www.PubCom.com | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing

print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs

consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services

— — —

Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA standards









From: L Snider [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Tuesday, December 5, 2017 1:29 PM
To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ; WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Pdf heading levels



Hi Bevi,

You mentioned that future PDF/UA tags are under development that may help. Is there any more information you can provide about this yet? I am curious where this is going down the line.

Cheers

Lisa



On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 10:59 AM, Chagnon | PubCom < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > > wrote:

Yes, you should care about the misordered sequence of headings. Jumping from H2 to H4 is considered an error.

In situations like yours, we consider headings like Quick Tips or Checklist to be H2s (sometimes H3 is if fits the hierarchical structure). They are primary subheadings, not minor ones, and they are followed by related copy so they are headings, not body text.

In some documents they may have a different appearance, such as a change of fonts, size, and color or in a separate text box to set them off from the rest of the page's content.

It is compliant to have variations of heading styles in Word to achieve both the semantic tagging and visual formatting you need in the PDF.

Example:
"Heading 2" / <H2> tag for regular subheads in the main body text.
"Heading 2 for Quick Tips" / <H2> for the tips box heading.

Note that both headings end up with <H2> tags in the PDF, although their visual appearance can differ.

There's no standard that says all H2 tags must look the same.

Future PDF/UA tags are under development that will help make this easier and clearer to accomplish, but for now, this method works and passes accessibility checkers, especially HHS's. Of course, everything with HHS depends upon which tester reviews your file as they each have their own opinion about things like this.

— — —
Bevi Chagnon
www.PubCom.com <http://www.PubCom.com>; | Technologists for Accessible Design and Publishing
print – digital – web – documents – pdfs – epubs
consulting – training – development – design – sec. 508 services
— — —
Bevi Chagnon is a US delegate (ANSI) to the ISO for PDF and PDF/UA standards

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Tue, Dec 05 2017 9:03PM
Subject: Re: Pdf heading levels
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While the HHS checklist does not mention PDF/UA, you are allowed to use it,
as long as you create the structure correctly. Incorrect structures would
be a violation of 3.1 and 3.2. Skipping over headings would be a violation
of 3.4. The PDF checklist does not mention PDF/UA to basically to prevent
confusion, but that does not prevent use.

Note: questions like this usually get routed to me officially. This should
not be seen as an official answer, you can point to it if you reach out to
DCD.

--
Ryan E. Benson

On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 2:39 PM, Alan Zaitchik < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> I guess this is the bottom line here.
> Thanks, Bevi and Steve for your input.
> A
>
> On 12/5/17, 1:15 PM, "Chagnon | PubCom" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> Remember, the client is HHS.
> Do what they want or you might lose your grant funding from them.
> They make the call about their material, not anyone else on this list
> or elsewhere.
> And they are very strict about maintaining accessibility guidelines.
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
>
>