Accessibility: It's the Law - InDesign User Group

Accessibility 

Vicky Richards 

victoria.richards@ssa.gov 

vfrichards@verizon.net 

Understanding Accessibility 

Section 508 requires the Federal government to produce accessible online documents and content for all people, 

including people with disabilities who use assistive technologies. 

• A person who is totally blind uses talking software, called a Screen Reader to hear the information that is 

ordinarily shown on a screen. The keyboard is used to control the Screen Reader software. 

• Someone who has low vision has a diminished ability to use the screen. They can compensate by using Screen 

Magnification software. Depending on their preferences, they may use a combination of Screen Magnification 

and Screen Reader software. 

• People who have no ability to use hands may use Speech Recognition software to control the computer. They 

cannot use the keyboard or mouse, so all commands are spoken (e.g., “Page Up... Page Up... Move to Top...”). 

People with disabilities can use an alternative mode of input and/or output when the ordinary method is 

unavailable. The words and meaning of the document remain the same, it is only the information delivery and 

user control mechanisms that differ. 

It is important to know that in order for these alternate interface mechanisms to work, the documents need 

to be designed to be accessible. To make documents accessible, the focus of document developers must be 

on formatting the document so that it works with things like Screen Readers, Screen Magnifiers, and Speech 

Recognition software. Without attending to these design details, many people with disabilities will find it difficult 

or impossible to read your documents. 

Just like a well formatted document, not so well formatted documents can be tagged, and exported as PDF. To a 

visual person there is no apparent difference in the appearance; however, a person who is blind or has low vision 

will never have the same access. Opening a poorly formatted document with assistive technology is like reading a 

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book without an index, indistinguishable titles, missing pages or pages that are out of order. Forgetting to provide 

interactivity makes it impossible to move between documents, visit pages on the Internet, or access additional 

information provided via a bibliography or a footnote. Images without captions and/or alternate text are invisible, 

like opening a magazine with black boxes were the pictures should be. 

How it appears visually 

How a Screen Reader “sees” it 

Accessibility: It’s the LawBlankBlankGreg Pisockygpisocky@adobe.comBlank 

Vicky Richardsvictoria.richards@ssa.govvfrichards@verizon.netBlankBlankBlank 

Understanding AccessibilitySection 508 requires the Federal government to produce 

accessible online documents and content for all people, including people with disabilities 

who use assistive technologies.BlankBullet Symbol A person who is totally blind uses 

talking software, called a Screen Reader to hear the information that is ordinarily shown 

on a screen. The keyboard is used to control the Screen Reader software.BlankBullet 

Symbol Someone who has low vision has a diminished ability to use the screen. They can 

compensate by using Screen Magnification software. Depending on their preferences, 

they may use a combination of Screen Magnification and Screen Reader software.Blank 

Bullet SymbolPeople who have no ability to use hands may use Speech Recognition 

software to control the computer. They cannot use the keyboard or mouse, so all commands 

are spoken (e.g., “Page Up... Page Up... Move to Top...”).BlankBlank People with 

disabilities can use an alternative mode of input and/or output when the ordinary method 

is unavailable. The words and meaning of the document remain the same, it is only the 

information delivery and user control mechanisms that differ.BlankBlank It is important 

to know that in order for these alternate interface mechanisms to work, the documents 

need to be designed to be accessible. To make documents accessible, the focus of 

document developers must be on formatting the document so that it works with things 

like Screen Readers, Screen Magnifiers, and Speech Recognition software. Without 

attending to these design details, many people with disabilities will find it difficult 

or impossible to read your documents. 

Good News: 

1. There is no need to make a ‘special’ document for any one group of users. A formatted document will be 

readable for everyone; 

2. The content or the visual layout of the documents does not need to change to make it accessible; 

3. You do not need to learn how to use technologies that people with disabilities typically use (if you format the 

document appropriately, there is a very high probability that it will work for people with disabilities); 

4. You do not need to be a programmer; and 

5. By using formatting and structuring of the kind necessary for accessibility, authoring and editing documents 

becomes a much more rapid process. 

For a general introduction to accessibility and requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, 

see the resources and training materials at the GSA Section 508 website: http://www.section508.gov/ 

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From InDesign CS5.0 (or earlier) to PDF 

What to do in InDesign 

• Use styles (paragraph styles/character styles) 

Styles are important to the structure of the document so screen readers can navigate through content. 

Note: Hyphenation does not work with screen reading software, please disable. 

• Thread all text boxes that are part of a story 

• Content relevant images/graphics/decorations have to have alt-text; non-relevant content should be artifacted 

(backgrounded) 

Alternate text is added through the Structure panel, after adding tags to the document. Select the Figure tag, 

right click (or select from drop down menu) New Attribute > Name. Type Alt (case sensitive), add alternate 

text. 

• Create interactive elements (hyperlinks, page links, text anchors, footnotes, cross-references, bibliography, 

etc.) 

All interactive elements require an origination and destination point which have to be linked to one another. 

Links will not work with screen readers, unless they are defined and tagged appropriately. 

• Create bookmarks (either by using the TOC from existing structure, or using the bookmark pane) 

Bookmarks are essential to document navigation. 

• Map styles to tags 

Mapping styles to tags fortifies the navigation by appropriately assigning tags to headings vs. text. 

• Set Metadata/File Information (Document Title, Subject, Creator, keywords) 

The file information allows people to easily find your documents via a web browser. 

• EXPORT to PDF 

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Settings for PDF Export Options 

Be sure to check optimization, tagging, view PDF and include Bookmarks, hyperlinks. 

Note: Save these settings as a Preset. 

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Remediating the PDF 

Document properties 

File > Properties 

• Check for metadata errors, fix or add any missing information 

• Set Language (Advanced Tab) 

• Set Initial View Page Layout and Magnification to “Default”; Show “Document Title” (Initial View Tab 

Set Tab Structure 

Pages > Options > Page Properties > Tab Order > Document Structure 

Check Bookmarks 

Note: If there are no bookmarks, you can add them through the PDF’s Bookmarks panel 

Check Reading Order 

Set/check Table properties in this panel through Table editor for tables. 

Check Tags 

• “Walk” tags to appropriate location if tags are not in order 

• Use the Role Map to map tags not included in the InDesign Map 

• Apply correct list structure (re-tag lists) 

• Nest all hyperlinks under the appropriate Link tag 

Run Accessibility Checker 

Correct any errors if necessary; run Accessibility Checker again; Reduce File Size (optional) 

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Issues and Solutions 

• Drop Caps 

The drop Cap is placed in its own container –this issue needs to be fixed in the content panel in the PDF 

• Lists/Table of Contents (TOC) 

InDesign will only export and map to certain tags; Lists, List Items, TOC, and TOC items export as P tags. 

These items have to be tagged manually by adding parent tags [L] [TOC], and sub directing the [LI][TOCI] 

tags. [LI] tags require additional tiers of tags [Lbl] for the bullet and [LBody] for the text. Additionally, the 

Style names have to be assigned the correct Tag in Acrobat under the Role Map. 

• Tables 

InDesign exports all tables without Table Heading [TH] Tags. Headers need to be manually tagged in the 

reading order panel through the Table Editor feature. Complex tables also require data/header association, 

through the Table Editor feature. 

• Reading Order 

Changing the Reading Order (RO) will change the structure of your tags. RO is derived from the order in 

which you placed containers in the InDesign document. Retagging a document in Acrobat can be difficult. 

It is better to fix the RO in InDesign. You can change the RO by rearranging the stacking order in the Layers 

Panel (InDesign CS5) or by arranging containers on a page in the order they are intended to read. Choose: 

Object > Arrange > Bring to Front for each container on a page to set the in the intended reading order. 

• Hyphenation 

InDesign will export optional hyphens as actual hyphens creating three separate containers for the word (first 

syllables, hyphen, last syllables). Whenever possible, hyphenation should be turned off in InDesign. 

• Hyperlinks 

Links export outside the LINK and LINK OBJR tags. The link text container needs to be nested into the 

appropriate tag) 

• Span Tags 

Optional/non-visible characters (manual line break, tab, extra returns, etc) will result in Span tags in the PDF. 

Use Nonbreaking Spaces or the No Break option instead of manual line breaks and to avoid odd breaks in text 

(widow/orphans, phone numbers, hyperlinks), and Space Before/Space After settings instead of multiple returns. 

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Great Improvements in InDesign CS5.5 



There has been some great improvements to the accessibility features in InDesign CS5.5, eliminating the majority 

of the issues previously mentioned. These enhancements not only make it easier to prepare a document for export 

to accessible PDF, it will also save a significant amount of time, because you no longer have to retag Lists, nor nest 

hyperlinks inside the PDF. The newly added features also make it easier to add alt-text to images and graphics, as 

well as create structure. The resulting export is extremely clean, and requires minimal touch up in the PDF. 

The Articles Panel 

The newly added Articles Panel eliminates the need to use the XML Structure Panel. It provides a simple way 

to establish structure and define reading order by simply clicking and dragging content from a layout into the 

Articles Panel. Items omitted from the Articles panel are automatically artifacted, and thereby excluded from the 

tag structure. 

In the Articles panel you can: 

• add/remove/reorder individual page items 

• add all selected content 

• add an entire document 

• add content through the pop-up menu 

• set the reading order for the PDF and ePub 

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Object Export Options 

Object Export Options eliminates a series of steps necessary to add Alternative Text (Alt-text) to images and 

graphics. The dialog box will remain open, giving you the ability to select different individual frames to add the 

necessary information. 

Object Export Options allows you to easily add Alt-text and actual text to graphic frames, text frames and 

groups. There are additional options for ePub and HTML that allow you to set rasterization and other quality and 

appearance settings to graphic and text frames. 

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Style Export Tagging 

Tagging options have been added to the Paragraph Styles panel. You can now assign the appropriate Heading 

XML tag for export to ePub, HTML and recognizable by PDF directly in the Paragraph Style. All other Styles are 

automatically “tagged.” For export to PDF this means that Lists no longer need to be re-tagged, a huge time saver. 

Additionally, hyperlinks, Cross-references are now tagged correctly. Setting up tables with a heading row also 

creates a correct table structure in the PDF, appropriately separating Table Headings from Table Data Rows, and 

assigning Column Headers as TH. 

You can also assign heading tags by using the Edit all Export tags options from the Paragraph Styles Panel drop 

down menu. Using this feature allows you to apply heading options to all existing styles, all other styles are 

automatically tagged. 

Using the Export Tagging in the Paragraph Styles Panel eliminates the need to use Map to Styles before exporting 

to PDF. 

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Exporting to PDF from CS5.5 

Before exporting the PDF, you need to complete the following steps in InDesign CS5.5: 

• enable all hyperlinks, cross-references, text links 

• add bookmarks 

• apply Alt-text through the new Object Export Options panel 

• assign heading tags via the Style Export tagging option 

• set structure and Reading Order by using the Articles panel (be sure to check Use for Reading Order in 

Tagged PDF from the Articles Panel drop down menu) 

• add File Info (Metadata) to your InDesign Document 

You can use the Export to PDF for Print using your preset options shown earlier, or by using the Export Adobe 

PDF (Interactive) option. Be sure to check, View After Exporting, Create Tagged PDF, and Include All Buttons 

and Media (if your PDF has interactive elements). 

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In the Exported PDF: 

• Set the Language and View Options 

• Check the File Information 

• Check Bookmarks 

• Set the Tab Structure 

• Check Tag Structure 

• Run the Accessibility Checker 

You should have a NO ERROR report! 

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Accessibility: It's the Law - InDesign User Group

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