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Showing posts from July, 2021

PFD Accessibility - fixing tags and reading order

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There are two possible problems with the tags in a PDF. The first is that the document is untagged. This means that no tags have been given and therefore a screen reader will have to get information in some other way. The second is that the document is tagged... maybe it has been automatically tagged when created from Word... but the tags are not quite right.  This can happen when the Word document or PowerPoint that the PDF was created from, wasn't checked for accessibility, but there are other things that can affect it too. It is always best to check the tags.  In the video that follows, I have deliberately kept in some of the things I tried that didn't quite work, to show you how to overcome them. It is a longer than usual video, but should give you a good overview of how to check and fix tags. Fixing Tags Tags determine the running order of a PDF when it is read by a screen reader. So the most important thing is that all the items are in the correct order. In the video, som

PDF accessibility - title

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One of the most common errors that comes up in a PDF accessibility check is missing title. The video that follows assumes that no title has been given.  To check the title, you can click on File ... Properties and see if anything is in the Title field. If there is but it is still flagging as an error, you have two options: 1. If the title is correct, close the popup, right click on the title error and click Fix . 2. If the title is wrong, delete it and then follow the instructions in the video. How to add a title This video includes a preview of what JAWS (screen reader) reads before and after we have fixed the title. Before, it reads the file name. In my case, when I saved the document, I gave the file a sensible name... but just imagine if JAWS was reading the default download filename with those %20 bits in. Horrible! Just a quick word about the quality of the screen recording. I'm experimenting with a few different screen recording tools. I've recorded this one using Vimeo