Accessibility in InDesign

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 1, 2022
2 replies
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I recall seeing an Adobe online publication some while ago that was devoted to accessibility in InDesign. Of course, I can't find it again. Does anyone have a link?

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Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Accessibility is more complex than what you'll learn from an online reference, even mine.

Example, my live online class is 16 hours long and I wish I had about 4 more for my students so we can get into some more complex design issues.

But to narrow accessible PDFs down to the essentials:

Everything in the document must tagged, even it's an artifact (which is am attribute on the Figure tag).
Each element must have the correct tag that identifies its purpose and context. Examples: H1 - H6 for headings, Note for footnotes.
The PDF's Tag Tree must have a logical Tag reading order.
The PDF's architectural reading order (the Order panel) must also be logical.
All graphics must either have appropriate Alt Text or are artifacted.
All hyperlinks must be accessible hyperlinks. Includes: cross references, index entries, TOCs, URLs, and email addresses.

There are more requirements and accessibility features to meet PDF/UA and WCAG accessibility standards, but these 6 items are the foundation that must be there for all PDFs to be usable and accessible for the majority of users.

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

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Eriq49MorseAuthor

Inspiring

I notice that your note seems to refer only to Acrobat, which I sort of understand, I am sort of hoping to do some of the work in InDesign. For instance I have a repeating graphic logo on every page, which should be an artifact. Can I tag and export it as such in InDesign?

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Eriq49MorseAuthor

Inspiring

All 6 items listed above are done, preferably, in InDesign and not Acrobat.

Once the PDF file is created, it's too cumbersome to build in all of those features.

So for tags, you specify the PDF tag in the Paragraph Style's definition in the Export Tags section (at the bottom). Choose the most appropriate tag from the drop-down menu.

And yes, repeating logos should be artifacted, and in most publications, everything on the Parent Page (aka, Master Page) as well, which InDesign does automatically.

When the work is done correctly in InDesign, you end up with a very compliant, accessible PDF. Not perfect yet (Adobe hasn't given us all the tools we need nor corrected the bugs), but one that can be quickly polished in Acrobat in minutes.

That's the strategy: do it the right, right from the start in InDesign.

Many thanks Bevi. I'm pretty much doing that by now, as I've beaten a couple of InDesign glitches into submission.

One more question, if you please, the document is massive, 550 pages. I've been noticing my computer laboring a bit under the strain, plus acrobat has a tendency to crash while I'm doing accessibility things, and I'm thinking of exporting from InDesign in 50 page chunks and then running the accessibility check and assembling in acrobat. Would this have any adverse effects on accessibility once the full document is assembled?