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Oberlin Webteam
Oberlin Webteam
Participant
November 15, 2023
Answered

Autotag puts all links inside reference tags

  • November 15, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1354 views

Recently when I've autotagged a PDF, it puts all link tags inside reference tags. However, none of the links point to content within the document; they are all external web URLs or email addresses. I'm guessing that this will cause problems for assistive technologies, so we've been fixing these in the tag tree manually. My questions:

  1.  Is this a real problem? Or will screen readers just ignore the reference tag and treat it as a normal external link? If that's the case we'll just leave them alone.
  2.  Is there an easier workaround than fixing them in the tag tree? Sometimes we have very long documents with lots of links, so the fix will be time consuming.

Thank you!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

    Hi @Oberlin Webteam,

    That's a correct tag structure for hyperlinks. <Reference> refers to an element that refers to other content somewhere else: inside the document or external.

     

    Refer to the PDF Association's free Syntax Guide at https://pdfa.org/resource/tagged-pdf-best-practice-guide-syntax/  FYI, the PDF Association develops the standards for all kinds of PDFs, including PDF/UA for accessibility.

     

    I'd be more concerned about the 2 nested <Span> tags that precede your sample. WTF!  Can't imagine what else autotag did to your file. Is there a reason why you're using it?

     

    1 reply

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.comCorrect answer
    Legend
    November 15, 2023

    Hi @Oberlin Webteam,

    That's a correct tag structure for hyperlinks. <Reference> refers to an element that refers to other content somewhere else: inside the document or external.

     

    Refer to the PDF Association's free Syntax Guide at https://pdfa.org/resource/tagged-pdf-best-practice-guide-syntax/  FYI, the PDF Association develops the standards for all kinds of PDFs, including PDF/UA for accessibility.

     

    I'd be more concerned about the 2 nested <Span> tags that precede your sample. WTF!  Can't imagine what else autotag did to your file. Is there a reason why you're using it?

     

    |&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bevi Chagnon &nbsp;&nbsp;|&nbsp;&nbsp;Designer, Trainer, &amp; Technologist for Accessible Documents ||&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PubCom |&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Classes &amp; Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs &amp; MS Office |
    Oberlin Webteam
    Oberlin WebteamAuthor
    Participant
    November 15, 2023

    Thanks! I often use autotagging as a starting point, but as I get better at it maybe I should just start from scratch.

     

    Before posting I checked the syntax guide, which I found in your response on another post. All of the examples of <Reference> involved internal content (TOC, footnotes, etc.), and the <Link> examples with external resources did not include a <Reference> tag. So it wasn't clear that they could be used together for external links.

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    November 15, 2023

    I can't recall any language in the PDF/UA standard itself that limits <Reference> to only internal destinations. But I'll reread it this weekend and get back to you with more definitive guidance.

     

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