PDF Tagging for reading systems

[Pickory]

Hello,

I am creating tables via a script. What level of tagging would be most helpful to reading systems. For instance, some of the columns are marked with a tick mark, which is actually a character 3. Would it be helpful if I tagged that cell with a tag cell_checked / cell_not_checked.

Thanks.

P.

[Chad Chelius]

cell_checked and cell_not_checked are not valid tag names in an accessible PDF file. The character itself (a checkmark or box) won't provide any value to the reader. Assistive software will probably read aloud "symbol". You could add alternate text to the tag which should be read by assistive software.

[Jongware]

Pickory  wrote

... some of the columns are marked with a tick mark, which is actually a character 3 ...

As soon as you are looking in to using a PDF with any other software, do not use non-Unicode fonts at all! The tick mark has a perfectly valid Unicode value of its own: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2713/index.htm . All you have to do is find a font which contains that character with the correct Unicode.

It's the same problem as with fonts such as the dreaded Symbol: while a character may look like an alpha 'α' on the screen, all other software (including copying and pasting the plain text from that same PDF) will happily report it uses the Unicode code point for a lowercase 'a' and so it must be a lowercase 'a'.

(Newer read-out loud software may recognize the Unicode value U+2713 as such, and then say "checkmark". Currently, it will see the code for a 3 and so you'll hear "three".)

[Pickory]

Thank you both, just starting on this so there is a lot to learn.

I can see alt text for images, is there an alt text for 'text'.

Thanks.

P.

[Pickory]

Hello,

I am back to thinking about this.

The current amount of tagging in ID seems to be very limited. I am working CC 2015. Just thinking out loud. We could implement our own tagging in InDesign and then have a script in Acrobat that converts our 'Pseudo' tags into the correct tags.

Has any one done this?

Is it a reasonable thing to do?

Thanks.

P.

[TᴀW]

Create tagged PDF files [axaio]

Ariel

[Pickory · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thank you for the link.

I should have mentioned this is for InDesign Server.

I think I am making this more complicated than it needs to be. I might be able to add more tags by adding to StyleExportTagMaps and apply them as the document is built.

P.