Designate Header Column

[pcullum]

How do you designate a column or individual cell as a header cell in InDesign?

I'm working on making a table accessible to screen readers and am having difficulty finding out how to designate a column as a header . I've got my initial row set as a header which covers all the column titles, but my first column of row names needs to be set as header cells as well so the screen reader will automatically call out the column and row name for each body cell selected.

[Steve Werner · Accepted solution]

You may have to edit the PDF tags in Acrobat after creating the PDF file. As far as I know, there is no way to designate the first column to be any different. Perhaps its scriptable in InDesign, but its not available in the user interface.

[Jongware]

nah I don't think it's scriptable. Don't forget that the GUI and scripting are both entry points that call on the same underlying functionality.

There are only a few very rare things that are only accessible through scripts, but I've never seen a reference to specific object or text meta tagging.

[pcullum]

Unfortunately it looks like this is not achievable in the current version of InDesign (2017.0). Here is the workflow I have for remediation through Acrobat that currently solves this issue:

Click the Order icon to open the order panel (right click on your left panel once you have activated Accessibility to select this icon).

Open the options for that panel by clicking the box icon at the top left of the order panel. Select Show reading order panel.

With the Reading order panel open hover your cursor over the top left of your table until it turns into a grab hand icon. Right click and select Table Editor.

Your table will now be highlighted with red boxes that show the cells. To get info for each cell’s designation, right click in a cell and select Table Editor Options.

Check the box next to Show cell type (TH or TD)

Shift-select your column header cells and right click. Select Table Cell Properties. It should already be checked as a Header from you designating that in InDesign, however it will not have a role attached to it. Set the Role to be Column and click OK.

Shift-select all your row header cells and right click. Select Table Cell Properties. Check the Header button. Set the Role to be Row and click OK.

Thanks for your replies!

[Steve Werner]

You could make an InDesign feature request here:

Feature Requests/Bug Reports

[Chad Chelius]

pcullum has the right answer. It is not currently possible to designate a row header in InDesign.

[Lukas Engqvist]

What is current status on this @Chad Chelius  ?

[Lukas Engqvist]

The link is giving me 404 is this feature implemented now?

[Chad Chelius]

Can you elaborate Lukas? What are you trying to do. The main topic of this post was the inability to define row headers in InDesign. Where are you getting a 404?

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Chad Chelius  The 404 is in @Steve Werner's feature request. I'm looking for a way to tag first column row from InDesign. (Actually preparing for my standard teaching and trying to figure out best practice for accessibility to be mainstream when I teach InDesign)
I understand how to get Table Header row as <TH> in the tag tree, but thought that if the first column also is a legend I have to tag that as header as well. Maybe I should have started a new thread. (or it could be that the autority on accessibility is over complicating matters. As I am looking for answers I'm not finding any examples of where the first cells in a row are TH)

[Chad Chelius]

Hi Lukas,

There's a lot of confusion in this thread. Fundamentally, InDesign can only define column headers but not row headers. If you have a table that needs row headers, you'll have to do it in Acrobat after the PDF is generated or use a product such as axesPDF to accomplish the task. The only way to define row headers in Adobe InDesign is by using the MadeToTag plug-in by Axaio.

[Creamer Training]

To my knowledge, column headers still have to be tagged in Acrobat Pro.

Here is the updated link: https://indesign.uservoice.com/

You can select 'bug' or 'feature request' on the right, but I see this as a feature request.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

There already is a feature request for this at https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601021-adobe-indesign-feature-requests/suggestions/39571414-im...

Since very vote counts with Adobe, let's use this version so we don't have to start over from scratch.

Vote to get accessibility features added to InDesign.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Thanks @Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com  that was what I was looking for (since I can't get what I want)… was just curious if there was a workaround using para styles or cell styles. …but we keep voicing our needs.