Span tag in PDF

@Ganesh_In , the above answer by @AccessibilityForAll is incorrect.

I'll try to correct the misunderstanding.

I would certainly remove them since they are problematic is several areas. ...

By @AccessibilityForAll

The <Span> tag is a legal tag in the PDF/UA standard (as well as in HTML, too). It's purpose is to mark up small parts of text in the document for specific purposes. See https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_05-02_tags/pdf-ua-tags.shtml

If you believe that they are "problematic in several areas," please let us know what problems you encounter. Most problems are due to mis-creation of the PDF by whoever created the PDF, or mis-processing of the PDF by a technology, such as a text-to-speech program. Don't blame these problems on the file format.

One, I believe span tags are non-semantic tags which do not convey meaning of the content they are containing which can also lead to issues with several screen readers for users that have disabilities. 

By @AccessibilityForAll

The <Span> tag can convey semantic meaning. Example: the Language attribute is placed on a <Span> tag when text switches from English to French. It also conveys when a software hyphen is used within body text, which can signal some assistive technologies to join the two fragments into one word. Visual formatting can also be defined with <Span> tags, which can be helpful for some users of assistive technologies.

For those in dual-language countries/provinces, such as Ontario, <Span> tags that differentiate the languages in a PDF are essential for AODA compliance.

I, for one, have been including this practice to remove any <div> or <span> tags within my documents for this reason alone since my career is to ensure that all of our electronic documents are 508 complaint compliant and accessibile. 

By @AccessibilityForAll

<Div> tags are also legal per the PDF/UA standard (as well as HTML). They're used for programming the file and do not convey any semantics to the end user, but do assist in designating portions of the code for specific purposes (just as in HTML). Unless you know programming (and specifically PDF programming and the PDF/UA standard), I wouldn't remove them: you can cause detrimental problems to the PDF — for everyone who uses the file, not just for assistive technologies.

Summary:

<Div> — ignore them because assistive technologies should not announce them.

<Span> — are required in certain places to provide full accessibility to the content. Leave them alone unless you know exactly how and why they are in the file and are confident that they are not needed.

In most PDF files our shop reviews and remediates, <Span> tags are needlessly made by content creators when they do not know how to make an accessible source file (like Word or Adobe InDesign). Any manual formatting in the source file will be programmed into the PDF with a <Span> tag.

In MS Word, the top control panel is incorrectly used to visually format the .DOCX file, and can cause useless <Span> tags in the PDF. Solution: learn to use Word correctly.

Similarly in Adobe InDesign, manual formatting via its control and properties panels causes useless <Span> tags in the PDF. Each line of text within the paragraph <P> is wrapped in a <Span>. Solution: learn to use InDesign correctly.

Bottom line:

• Learn the PDF/UA-1 standard and what each tag is designed to do.
• Learn how to determine when <Span> tags are necessary and when they are not.
• Learn how to create good source files (Word, PowerPoint, InDesign, etc.) so that unnecessary <Span> tags don't ever clog up your PDFs.
• Learn how to determine whether problems are caused by the way the content was created in the source file, how the content was converted to PDF and tagged, whether the PDF reading software is correctly processing the content, and whether the assistive technology is presenting the content correctly. There are a lot of places in this workflow where one entity drops the ball.
• And learn how all assistive technologies should process these tags. File complaints with the manufacturers when their assistive technologies do not follow the PDF/UA-1 standards.

—Bevi Chagnon

US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA