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From: Wolfgang Berndorfer
Date: Tue, Mar 06 2018 1:40PM
Subject: Heading Structure for Documents
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Hi!

Web sides should optimally have a singular heading with level 1 to navigate
to the main content. But how about MS Word documents or PDF?

If I generate a table of contents via Word functionalities in a document
with correct heading semantics, the heading structure seems outlandish with
one H1.

Do You have any solutions or even standards for heading hierarchies in
documents? Didn't find any.

Wolfgang

From: L Snider
Date: Tue, Mar 06 2018 2:02PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
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Hi Wolfgang,

Many people will say that you can have more than one H1 in a document, and
others only use one, such as myself (there is the rare occasion where I
will use 2 heading 1s). You will hear both sides, and arguments for both...

If you haven't already seen this, the Webaim screen reader survey had a
question about headings. Now this question, even though it doesn't state
web page in there was geared to a web page. However, in my view one could
use those results and correlate them to documents. Not everyone will agree
with me, but I have asked many screen reader users and in my experience
they like one Heading 1. Not everyone will have that same experience.

https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/#heading

Cheers

Lisa

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:40 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Web sides should optimally have a singular heading with level 1 to navigate
> to the main content. But how about MS Word documents or PDF?
>
> If I generate a table of contents via Word functionalities in a document
> with correct heading semantics, the heading structure seems outlandish with
> one H1.
>
> Do You have any solutions or even standards for heading hierarchies in
> documents? Didn't find any.
>
> Wolfgang
>
> > > > >

From: Wolfgang Berndorfer
Date: Wed, Mar 07 2018 1:19PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi Lisa,
Seems, you've said everything that had to be said:
1. Both variants (Web-like realization / TOC optimization) are possible and
therefore have to be considered.
2. [Argumentum ex nihilo] Since nobody out there brought in some standards
or guidelines, there couldn't be any.
I participated at the survey and personally try out the H1 navigation in
documents as a screen reader user very often, but seldom satisfied. The
problem is usually not the frequency of H1, but the heading hierarchy at
all.
Documents linked on web pages or as e-mail attachments should be focused
more intensively for accessibility and usability issues. Perfidiously they
seem so easily to realize via "save as".
Thanks for Your singular answer!
Wolfgang
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
von L Snider
Gesendet: Dienstag, 06. März 2018 22:02
An: WebAIM Discussion List
Betreff: Re: [WebAIM] Heading Structure for Documents

Hi Wolfgang,

Many people will say that you can have more than one H1 in a document, and
others only use one, such as myself (there is the rare occasion where I
will use 2 heading 1s). You will hear both sides, and arguments for both...

If you haven't already seen this, the Webaim screen reader survey had a
question about headings. Now this question, even though it doesn't state
web page in there was geared to a web page. However, in my view one could
use those results and correlate them to documents. Not everyone will agree
with me, but I have asked many screen reader users and in my experience
they like one Heading 1. Not everyone will have that same experience.

https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/#heading

Cheers

Lisa

On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:40 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Web sides should optimally have a singular heading with level 1 to
navigate
> to the main content. But how about MS Word documents or PDF?
>
> If I generate a table of contents via Word functionalities in a document
> with correct heading semantics, the heading structure seems outlandish
with
> one H1.
>
> Do You have any solutions or even standards for heading hierarchies in
> documents? Didn't find any.
>
> Wolfgang
>
> > > > >

From: L Snider
Date: Wed, Mar 07 2018 6:34PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

I can't think of any standards off hand that require one or the other, they
either have to be present (headings in general) and/or in order...Someone
will correct me if I am wrong.

Many on the list may chime in saying that they use more than one H1 in
documents. I think we had a discussion about this about 1-2 years ago,
might be worth checking the archives as that discussion will give you the
basics on what you were looking for (from memory).

Cheers

Lisa

On Wed, Mar 7, 2018 at 2:19 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> Hi Lisa,
> Seems, you've said everything that had to be said:
> 1. Both variants (Web-like realization / TOC optimization) are possible and
> therefore have to be considered.
> 2. [Argumentum ex nihilo] Since nobody out there brought in some standards
> or guidelines, there couldn't be any.
> I participated at the survey and personally try out the H1 navigation in
> documents as a screen reader user very often, but seldom satisfied. The
> problem is usually not the frequency of H1, but the heading hierarchy at
> all.
> Documents linked on web pages or as e-mail attachments should be focused
> more intensively for accessibility and usability issues. Perfidiously they
> seem so easily to realize via "save as".
> Thanks for Your singular answer!
> Wolfgang
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
> von L Snider
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 06. März 2018 22:02
> An: WebAIM Discussion List
> Betreff: Re: [WebAIM] Heading Structure for Documents
>
> Hi Wolfgang,
>
> Many people will say that you can have more than one H1 in a document, and
> others only use one, such as myself (there is the rare occasion where I
> will use 2 heading 1s). You will hear both sides, and arguments for both...
>
> If you haven't already seen this, the Webaim screen reader survey had a
> question about headings. Now this question, even though it doesn't state
> web page in there was geared to a web page. However, in my view one could
> use those results and correlate them to documents. Not everyone will agree
> with me, but I have asked many screen reader users and in my experience
> they like one Heading 1. Not everyone will have that same experience.
>
> https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey7/#heading
>
> Cheers
>
> Lisa
>
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:40 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer <
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > Web sides should optimally have a singular heading with level 1 to
> navigate
> > to the main content. But how about MS Word documents or PDF?
> >
> > If I generate a table of contents via Word functionalities in a document
> > with correct heading semantics, the heading structure seems outlandish
> with
> > one H1.
> >
> > Do You have any solutions or even standards for heading hierarchies in
> > documents? Didn't find any.
> >
> > Wolfgang
> >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Wed, Mar 07 2018 7:00PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

On 2018-03-06 3:40 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer wrote:
> If I generate a table of contents via Word functionalities in a document
> with correct heading semantics, the heading structure seems outlandish with
> one H1.
Regarding the Table of Contents in Word, it is possible to customize
your automatically generated Table of Contents to control exactly which
headings are included and to map heading levels to whatever TOC style
level you desire.

I usually use a single Heading 1 in MS Word for the Title and then use
Heading 2 and below for all the rest. Then I map Heading 2 to TOC 1,
Heading 3 to TOC 2, Heading 4 to TOC 3, etc. And I exclude Heading 1
from the Table of Contents altogether.

And I usually create an additional Heading 2 style that I use just for
the Table of Contents so that the Table of Contents itself does not
appear in the Table of Contents.

Phil.

--
Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Mar 07 2018 9:26PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
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Phil detailed a great strategy (below) for headings and then generating the TOC from them.

--Bevi Chagnon
— — —
Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
— — —
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting ' training ' development ' design ' sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
— — —

From: Swift, Daniel P.
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 6:02AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

Phil -- I'm curious as to why you would use the H1 for a title instead of the 'title' in Word? My approach has been title, sub-title (if warranted), TOC, and then headers. Taking this approach, the title will not appear in the TOC and you don't have to worry about remapping the headers and the TOC. Am I missing something or doing something completely wrong?

Dan Swift
Senior Web Specialist
Enterprise Services
West Chester University
610.738.0589

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 6:33AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
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The very sensible approach you describe is the one recommended by Microsoft, and therefore also the one best supported by default templates in Word .

In my case, however, practically all Word documents I currently work on are intended to be published as PDFs and in some cases also as HTML. My goal is to reduce the amount of remediation required after conversion to other formats so that when edits are required to the original Word source file, I will be able to recreate the PDF and HTML versions with the least amount of post-conversion work possible.

For what it's worth, in my templates I often edit the built-in Title style so that it also has a Heading 1 outline level and matches almost identically the visual style of a Heading 1. And I remove Heading 1 from the Quick Style gallery in order to discourage other content editors from using it for standard headings.

Phil.
--
Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On March 8, 2018 8:02:41 AM EST, "Swift, Daniel P." < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>Phil -- I'm curious as to why you would use the H1 for a title instead
>of the 'title' in Word? My approach has been title, sub-title (if
>warranted), TOC, and then headers. Taking this approach, the title
>will not appear in the TOC and you don't have to worry about remapping
>the headers and the TOC. Am I missing something or doing something
>completely wrong?
>
>Dan Swift
>Senior Web Specialist
>Enterprise Services
>West Chester University
>610.738.0589
>
>

From: Bourne, Sarah (MASSIT)
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 8:31AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

Dan, you asked, "I'm curious as to why you would use the H1 for a title instead of the 'title' in Word?" I use the same approach as Phil. I only use the "Title" style when I'm creating a document that has a separate title page, such as in a formal report. This actually doesn't happen very often, but mapping the Title to Heading 1 is a good idea if you don't repeat the title on a subsequent page.

(By the way, marking a Title style does not have anything to do with creating a title in the metadata - you have to do that separately. Mentioning this because I've been asked about that.)

Sarah E. Bourne
Director of IT Accessibility
1 Ashburton Place, 8th Floor, Boston, MA 02108
Office: (617) 626-4502
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | www.mass.gov/eotss
Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS)

From: Wolfgang Berndorfer
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 10:01AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

Phil, your solution sounds perfect for me. Yet I've to find the Word
functionalities to realize the TOC as you proposed.

But: How do you create an additional Heading 2 just for the TOC, which not
appears in the Word-generated TOC, but in the heading list of my screen
reader? The TOC not always follows under the title immediately:

Let's think about a meeting protocol: The TOC should probably contain the
agenda items. Between title and TOC is perhaps a table with informations
about date, location and participants.

@Dan:
I know no functionalities for screen readers to navigate to a Word title.
And the title might not be on the top of the document. Perhaps in a letter
there is first somehow a banner and the address an I there would give the
subject the H1.

Uniform heading hierarchies on websites, Word and PDF would be great for
screen reader usability.

What do you think?

Wolfgang

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
von Philip Kiff
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 08. März 2018 14:33
An: WebAIM Discussion List; Swift, Daniel P.
Betreff: Re: [WebAIM] Heading Structure for Documents

The very sensible approach you describe is the one recommended by Microsoft,
and therefore also the one best supported by default templates in Word .

In my case, however, practically all Word documents I currently work on are
intended to be published as PDFs and in some cases also as HTML. My goal is
to reduce the amount of remediation required after conversion to other
formats so that when edits are required to the original Word source file, I
will be able to recreate the PDF and HTML versions with the least amount of
post-conversion work possible.

For what it's worth, in my templates I often edit the built-in Title style
so that it also has a Heading 1 outline level and matches almost identically
the visual style of a Heading 1. And I remove Heading 1 from the Quick Style
gallery in order to discourage other content editors from using it for
standard headings.

Phil.
--
Philip Kiff
D4K Communications

On March 8, 2018 8:02:41 AM EST, "Swift, Daniel P." < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
>Phil -- I'm curious as to why you would use the H1 for a title instead
>of the 'title' in Word? My approach has been title, sub-title (if
>warranted), TOC, and then headers. Taking this approach, the title
>will not appear in the TOC and you don't have to worry about remapping
>the headers and the TOC. Am I missing something or doing something
>completely wrong?
>
>Dan Swift
>Senior Web Specialist
>Enterprise Services
>West Chester University
>610.738.0589
>
>

From: phil
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 10:54AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

On 2018-03-08 12:01, Wolfgang Berndorfer wrote:
> Phil, your solution sounds perfect for me. Yet I've to find the Word
> functionalities to realize the TOC as you proposed.

In the Custom Table of Contents dialog, there is an Options button that
takes you to a listing where you can assign a TOC level to particular
styles.

In the Word 2013 for Windows version that I have in front of me right
now, I can get to the main "Table of Contents Dialog General" with the
following keystrokes:
[ALT] then [S] then [T] then [C]
And to open the Options dialog from there, press:
[ALT]+[O] together

Here is a longer explanation of shortcuts: [ALT] to activate single
keystroke shortcuts, then [S] to get to the References tab in the
ribbon, then [T] to get to the Table of Contents drop-down, then [C] to
select Custom Table of Contents, which opens the Table of Contents
dialog. Then [Alt]+[O] activates the Options button.

So, at that point, I have a Table of Contents Options dialog box that
has opened up on top of the main Table of Contents dialog. Within that
Table of Contents Options dialog, you can awkwardly use the TAB, SHIFT +
TAB, and UP and DOWN arrow keys to navigate entry boxes beside each
Available Style. The numbers you enter represent the TOC level. A blank
entry means to not include that style in the Table of Contents.

Mmmmm...quickly testing this now with NVDA, I can't actually figure out
how to get it to read the style names - it identifies them as "Style 1",
"Style 2", "Style 3", etc, instead of "Balloon Text", "Footer",
"Header", "Heading 1", "Heading 2", etc. And while I can get to the rest
of the headings using a scroll mouse, if I try to get there with
keyboard only, it appears that you have to TAB a 7th time to get to the
scroll bar and then use the cursor to scroll down and then SHIFT + TAB
to get back. But then the form entries are all identified again as Style
1 through Style 6 even though there are a whole new set of styles
showing.

It seems to be a very weird input form.

Maybe a regular screen reader user can figure out how to get that
Options dialog to behave?

> But: How do you create an additional Heading 2 just for the TOC, which
> not
> appears in the Word-generated TOC, but in the heading list of my screen
> reader?

Once you have a new style based on Heading 2, it will show up in the
"Available Styles" list, and then you can simply leave the corresponding
"TOC level" for that style blank. And it won't show up in your custom
Table of Contents when you regenerate it.

Phil.

From: Swift, Daniel P.
Date: Thu, Mar 08 2018 12:40PM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

Good stuff -- thanks to you and Phil for the clarification!

Dan Swift
Senior Web Specialist
Enterprise Services
West Chester University
610.738.0589

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Fri, Mar 09 2018 7:44AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | Next message →

On 2018-03-08 3:19 PM, Wolfgang Berndorfer wrote:
> [...] Or do you have a link to a
> template for your resolution?
Sorry, no, I don't have a template I can share.  :-(

Phil.

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Fri, Mar 09 2018 8:15AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
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I have a tagged PDF tutorial on creating a TOC and a custom TOC with keyboard commands and sample documents with various types of TOC's including a TOC for each chapter in a document:
http://www.karlencommunications.com/OfficeForWindowsAccessibility.html

Once on the webpage, get a list of links and then press C for Customize a Table of Contents.

The tutorial takes you through using the Options button and the Modify button in the TOC dialog. Everything is keyboard command based.

There are other tutorials with sample documents for more advanced document components as well.

Cheers, Karen

From: Wolfgang Berndorfer
Date: Mon, Mar 12 2018 9:06AM
Subject: Re: Heading Structure for Documents
← Previous message | No next message

Thanks for all your inputs! I now know that a singular H1 document and a
fitting TOC for the document don’t exclude each other. It needs some effort
and I’m curious, whether I can convince anybody. But I will revise my own
templates.

Wolfgang


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] Im Auftrag
von Karlen Communications
Gesendet: Freitag, 09. März 2018 16:16
An: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Betreff: Re: [WebAIM] Heading Structure for Documents

I have a tagged PDF tutorial on creating a TOC and a custom TOC with
keyboard commands and sample documents with various types of TOC's including
a TOC for each chapter in a document:
http://www.karlencommunications.com/OfficeForWindowsAccessibility.html

Once on the webpage, get a list of links and then press C for Customize a
Table of Contents.

The tutorial takes you through using the Options button and the Modify
button in the TOC dialog. Everything is keyboard command based.

There are other tutorials with sample documents for more advanced document
components as well.

Cheers, Karen