Participant

Question

Are Soft Returns read by accessibility readers?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
June 21, 2022
12 replies
2966 views

When we use soft returns/line breaks in InDesign and export the document as a PDF, will accesibility readers read those soft returns, either as a character or a hard break?

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Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

My question is, why do you need forced return. What do you want to afford?

S

SamaraEstherAuthor

Participant

Hello!

I work for an Art Director that uses soft returns to make text look more appealing/even I guess? We do have paragraph styles with GREPs that make sure there are at least 12 characters on each line, and also use Balance Ragged Lines occasionally, but it seems like she still needs to use the forced breaks. I guess I'm not entirely sure how to use paragraph styles to get a line to break exactly where we want it without the soft/forced returns.

Willi Adelberger

Community Expert

Work with paragraphs and paragraph styles.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Hmm.

Several questions for you.

First, define "read." Do you mean are they verbally announced by screen readers? Some sort of sound?

No, all returns are silent.

However, they may or may not cause mis-communication and confusion to the person who has to listen to the text, understand it correctly, and comprehend it.

The text on each side of the return could run-on together as one word because usually there isn't any punctuation to change the the voicing with a slight pause or dropping of the voice.

So it's best to avoid them, especially when they are mid-paragraph, such as to control bad hyphenation or line breaks. Find other ways, preferably via a paragraph style.

Second question: why are you concerned only about the effects of them on screen reader users? They have drastic negative effect on those who must use magnificaiton software and programs for reading disorders, both of which need flowable, responsive text rather than something that's peppered with these breaks.

Third question: why call them "soft" returns? Since they hardwire the text into a particular visual format, they're hardly soft in any definition of the word. The true name for them is "manual line break within a paragraph" and they kill any concept of responsive design in the document.

Aim to create responsive designs that can adapt to any technology that reads the file.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

S

SamaraEstherAuthor

Participant

Hello! Thank you for your response!

That is what I meant by reading it, so thank you!

the Art Director I work for occasionally uses them in the brochures we make to break the line of text where she wants, usually in the middle of a sentence without punctuation on either side of the break. We would want it to be read as a continuous sentence though, not a separate line/thought.

I was concerned about them because we're starting to make our documents better for accessibility and screen readers are the only thing they've brought up so far. I guess I didn't know that once it was in a PDF, the returns mattered in terms of magnefication, I'm not super familiar with accessibility unfortunately.

How would I program a paragraph style to break a line exactly where I want it to in order to have a responsive doc?

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Thanks for being so concerned about accessibility, @SamaraEsther. Sure wish your art director was just as concerned!

Using manual line breaks to control line endings and hyphenation breaks is a huge accessibility barrier for all assistive technologies. There are much better ways to control line endings in the InDesign layout:

A character style that sets "No Break". It can be applied to force content NOT to hyphenate.
A character style that sets -05 tracking. Use it to tighten up a schootch to fit more copy.
Adjusting the hyphenation settings in a paragraph style. Some options are more/fewer hyphens in a row, reduce the hyphenation zone to 1 pica.
Adjust the composer settings in a paragraph style. Switch to single-line compuser rather than the default paragraph composer.
Adjust the right margin in a paragraph style to allow more/fewer characters on a line.

Generally, when you can do it with a style, it doesn't affect accessibility. But when you do it as a manual override, you create accessibility problems.

Maybe time for some accessibility classes? <grin>

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

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