What is the standard for handling footnotes when tagging a document for 508 Accessibility?

"Without wanting to offend anybody;" — (Q.) Why did I say this? (A.) So that the next part could then follow without offending! Why have you then taken offence? — "when you see MVP or ACP icons next to someone's screen name, it indicates that we are volunteer experts that Adobe has asked to monitor the forum . . . Therefore, be nice to us. We don't get paid to help you, especially in the evening on our personal time."

I very much appreciate any help I can get via these forums so PLEASE take no offence!

<P>

          this is the first example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is here

          <Reference>

                    1

          making reference to the one word alone.

<Note>

...

The footnote superscript is the link. Why have a link on the text "here" as well? It should be understood that either the footnote references the broader sentence as a whole if placed at the end of that sentence, OR that the footnote references the preceding word or phrase if placed within the sentence. I would not have a link on BOTH word and footnote superscript. If that were the case, then why not put a link on the entire sentence for footnotes that come after a complete sentence? Or on a paragraph?

Huh. I just made quick Word Doc with a few sentence samples as you're describing. I couldn't insert a footnote on the text anyway. It ignored my selection and only created the dynamic footnote number sequence. Exporting to PDF shows the same. The text that I highlighted reflects the sample above, where "here" is not part of the reference/link. Only the number is.

Is this at all on track with what you're trying to accomplish?

I know you are probably getting frustrated, but the earlier posts are pretty heavy to interpret exactly what it is you're asking. Stripping it down to just what it is you're looking to resolve may help with translation. Here is the HHS PDF download for 508 tagging guide. Check page 30/50 for a screen capture of their standard tag suggestions. That may be overkill based on what Bevi noted above in reply #2 in how the use of <Reference>, <Note>, and <Lbl> is note clearly defined.

Without wanting to offend anybody; this question remains unanswered:

If anybody can answer my question (please look at my previous post) that would be much appreciated.

Thanks raeben3 and Bevi Chagnon for your quick responses.

After looking at my post I realise that firstly I should have included my Note tag so as to highlight the topic of my question which is whether or not the first of the two example procedures is acceptable practice (the reference tag attached to the word HERE which is the word that I am calling out and attaching the label 1 thereto)?

If the above which seems more proper to me is not acceptable practice should I simply put the word "HERE" after "this is the first example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is HERE" — (right before the <Reference> tag)? My issue with this is that it appears that I am calling out the word HERE and everything prior from the "...this is the first example..." even though this is probably the correct procedure? I hope that I have made my query clearer.

Below is my amended post with the placement of the footnote — the <Note> tag at the end of the paragraph:

I am tagging a PDF document so that it can be fully accessible and 508 compliant. What is the correct way to handle footnotes when looking toward the two scenarios below?

...this is the first example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is HERE¹ making reference to the one word alone.

...this is the second example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is at the end of the paragraph making reference to the whole of the paragraph.²

As far as I am aware the second example is fairly straight forward when dealing with and can be dealt with as follows:

<P>

    this is the second example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is making reference to the whole paragraph.

        <Reference>

            <Lbl>

                   2

However regarding the first below it seems more proper to deal with the callout in the following manner (see the word called out — "HERE": Is this correct procedure? Or is this not acceptable?

<P>

    this is the first example sentence within a paragraph and the footnote is

        <Reference>

            <Lbl>

                   1

        HERE

    making reference to the one word alone.

<Note>

    <Lbl>

           1

     the content of my footnote is this sentence.

Without telling us where the <Note> tag appears in your code, it's difficult to advise you.

At this time, the standard doesn't sufficiently spell out how how the combo of tags <Reference>, <Lbl> and <Note> should be used in Tagged PDF, but clarification is in the works by the committee.

Also, at this time most assistive technologies don't do anything with the <Lbl> tag, other than read the contents in it, so its usefulness right now is "meh."

So for now, an informal best practice that will be useful and readable by those who use assistive technologies is what Raeben3 suggested above: place the <Note> tag after the sentence, or better yet, after the paragraph. Definitely don't interrupt the sentence with a <Note> tag.

If your software (the source application software and the conversion utility) puts in the <Lbl> tags, great. If not, add them manually with your PDF software (such as Acrobat Pro) if it's feasible to do so.