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Agim31170049247v
Inspiring
August 11, 2023
Answered

PAC 2021 asks for tagging border of tables

  • August 11, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1474 views

Is it true, that every line of a border in a table has to be tagged? PAC 2021 asks for that. (InDesign 18.5 to tagged PDF)

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Frans v.d. Geest

    Very time consuming solution you found.
    No need, can be easier and quikcker: Just do this in Acrobat: choose Tools, PDF Standards. Then click on Preflight. Make sure you see all fixes (In the menu it should say 'Acrobat Pro DC 2015' and not 'Essentials), the click on the most right icon that looks like a wrench; now use the search field to find 'Artifacts' fixes, there is one and it is called domething like 'Artifact all non-essential content'. Just run that. Done 🙂

    2 replies

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Legend
    August 12, 2023

    PAC 2021 flags cell/table borders as needing tags, as well as other items.

    All of this visual clutter must be artifacted for compliance, so ignore PAC's error on those items.

     

    |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
    A
    Agim31170049247vAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 12, 2023

    Found the solution here: https://theaccessibilityguy.com/path-object-not-tagged-pdf-ua/

    A
    Agim31170049247vAuthor
    Inspiring
    August 12, 2023

    Those lines should be artifacts anyway, so another bug in InDesign

    Frans v.d. Geest
    Community Expert
    Frans v.d. GeestCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 12, 2023
    quote

    ...WCAG2 for instance does not specify that the pdf has to be pdf/ua, and it is pdf/ua that says everything that is not 'essential' should be artefacted, like lines in a table.

    By @Frans v.d. Geest

     

    Just to clarify...

    WCAG has absolutely nothing it can say about accessible PDFs: they are not the ones who determine accessible PDFs, and what they do recommend on the WCAG website is often wrong.

     

    History:

    • Adobe created the PDF file format 30+ years ago and until 2008, only Adobe Acrobat products could create, edit, and read PDF files.
    • In 2008, Adobe donated the PDF file format (not Acrobat software) to the ISO (International Standards Organization in Geneva Switzerland) as a way to make the file format available to the public. Today, hundreds of different software programs can create, edit, use, and present PDF files.
    • The ISO appointed several standard-writing committees to develop the standards for all kinds of PDFs, including accessible PDFs. One of those committees developed the original PDF/UA-1 standard in 2012 and they have since updated /UA-1 as recently as 2018.  PDF/UA-2 is currently in development.
    • Today, the PDF Association has been appointed by the ISO to manage all standards for all kinds of PDF files, including PDF/UA. Some of the other types of PDF standards the Association developes are: PDF/A archival, PDF/E engineering, PDF/VT variable text, and PDF/X for printing and graphics arts.

     

    [ Here's a quick overview of the history from Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/uk/acrobat/resources/document-files/pdf-types/pdf-ua.html ]

     

    Therefore, WCAG has no authority about anything regarding PDF files. Let's keep them out of the conversation.

     

    Although the tag structure looks similar between HTML and PDF tables, the actual coding of the files is drastically different. PDF documents are not HTML webpages;  and PDFs require substantial programming to create them while HTML is just a mark-up language on content. Big difference!

     

    With much admiration to my friend Frans,

    —Bevi

    (former PDF programmer, former web developer, former contributor to WCAG, and current delegate to the ISO committees for PDFs)

     

    PS: And I agree that this is a bug in the export-to-PDF utility in InDesign. But there is an internal verbal battle behind the scenes of the committee and Adobe that I won't go into here. I doubt Adobe will fix this in our lifetimes.

     


    Remember, that in the USA you have section508 compliance. In Europe we don't have that, there PDF is brought under what we call WCAG, for web and PDF, so hence we call those PDF's WCAG compliant. Also PAC2021 has a new tab: WCAG in the PDF checker. But yes, strictly speaking you are right Bevi 😉

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