RE: Should PDF documents have headers and footers on every page?

Page numbers and such should be in the linear order they would be presented visually.  Others favor putting them in another logical order for screen reader output use, however, as a long long time screen reader user myself I think this is overdoing it, e.g. I understand pages and page numbering and page titling just fine and don’t need another reading order created “just for me”.  This is a “nice to have” for some situations only, and if at all would in my mind only be something needed for level AAA conformance if anything like that exists in PDF-UA or such.  IN Braille transcribing circles one method of identifying print pages is to identify them in line with a line and page number, and labeling Braille extra pages such as 21, 21A, 21B, etc so blind person knows where the printed page break is, while still having page numbering.  This works great, and again, indicating that headers and footers for each page are required doesn’t make a lot of sense to me even from a nice to have perspective.  We wouldn’t require such for a long HTML page, so I can’t understand why we would think it was required for PDF pages either.

Anyway just my two or three cents worth.



Allen Hoffman
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The Office of Accessible Systems & Technology
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From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 10:16 PM
To: Gregg Vanderheiden; WCAG
Subject: Re: Should PDF documents have headers and footers on every page?

PS I've added the following paragraph to the analysis to clarify.

"Note: The WCAG2ICT maps each PDF Document to a single unit rather than a number of pages.
http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/#keyterms_document

It says:
replacing “on a Web page” with “in a non-web document or software”

This means that the document is the unit of measurement for WCAG conformance. This does not affect this discussion about making important information available to screen reader users.
To see an example of this in WCAG2ICT see 1.4.2 in WCAG2ICT http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2ict/#visual-audio-contrast-dis-audio



Cheers,

David MacDonald



CanAdapt Solutions Inc.

Tel:  613.235.4902

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On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 9:45 PM, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>> wrote:
Hi Gregg
Are you concerned that this recommendation could confuse our mapping of a full PDF document to a web page for WCAG (WCAG2ICT)? I don't really see it that way. I think our WCAG2ICT is fine and stable and not affected.

People will refer to "pages" of this PDF "web page" the same way that they might refer to any other Section  of a document, and we have existing techniques to do that currentlyPDF17, PDF14. We can't pretend the page numbers in the PDF don't exist, can we? It is visually presented and we need to make a way to programmatically expose it without annoying screen reader users with all kinds of redundancy and interruptions.
Our current advice in PDF14 contradicts itself. It advises authors to make headers and footers (and page numbers) available to screen readers using the MS Word footer tags, which actually turns them into artifacts that are ignored by screen readers. We also say use "pagination artifacts which are also ignored. So we look pretty dumb I think. In the same sentence saying to do something to make it programmatically accessible which renders it NOT programmatically accessible.

I'm simply suggesting we clean up the language, be more specific, and coordinate with the PDF/UA on this particular issue. I don't think this any way compromises WCAG2ICT or changes the definition of the Web Page under the WCAG. It exposes information in an accessible and elegant way by syncing pages using PDF17 Technique and marking headers and footers up as artifacts, and providing important information on the Title page, and section headings, so screen reader users know what is going on.



Cheers,

David MacDonald



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Tel:  613.235.4902<tel:613.235.4902>

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On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 7:47 PM, Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@raisingthefloor.org<mailto:gregg@raisingthefloor.org>> wrote:
For documents - a full document is equated to a web page.  See WCAG2ICT report.

gregg

----------------------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden
gregg@raisingthefloor.org<mailto:gregg@raisingthefloor.org>



On Jun 9, 2015, at 4:12 PM, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>> wrote:

I have compared what PDF/UA with WCAG say about headers and footers and have written up a small report and recommendations on how I think we should proceed with Headers and Footers in PDF documents.

http://davidmacd.com/blog/pdf-headers-footers.html

I think PDF14 requires an update quickly. I could take an action item to propose the rewrite.


Cheers,
David MacDonald


CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
Tel:  613.235.4902<tel:613.235.4902>
LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100>
www.Can-Adapt.com<http://www.can-adapt.com/>


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On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 9:54 PM, Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com<mailto:jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com>> wrote:
David, there are some good but very specific reasons to not artifact header and footer information.  Otherwise running headers and footer should be made pagination artifacts and the Page Labels feature should be used to add Page numbering including section information to identify pages and sections to assistive technology.  The page label feature is pretty powerful and allows flexibility for different number schemes such as Roman numbers and custom label prefixes.

Some instances of header and footer information that might be useful include classification information on classified documents, copyright information, form numbers, or other content that is not located elsewhere in the document.  In general I recommend marking that content as non-artifact content on the first and last page so it does not break up the reading order of content.

Best Regards,

Jonathan

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From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca<mailto:david100@sympatico.ca>]
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 2:50 PM
To: WCAG
Subject: Should PDF documents have headers and footers on every page?


We have a technique for Creating PDF headers and footers, usually inserted
using the source program such as MS Word Headers and Footers. See PDF14.

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/PDF14.html

This causes the screen reader to announce these Headers and footers at the
top and bottom of every page. Sometimes the interrupt reading halfway
through a sentence that continues on the following page. I can imagine this
is quite annoying for screen reader users tp have to listen through a header and a footer between every page.

Visually we just skip over it... Usually most of the information found in the header and footer is available on the home page of the document or some other prominent place.

What is useful is page numbers. However, if the author syncs the page
numbering of the PDF with the document large numbers using PDF17, it makes
me wonder if we should advise the author to mark headers and footers as
artifacts instead...

An organization that teaches PDF, which is fairly well known, and has done
work for Adobe teaches to turn these headers and footers into artifacts so
they will be ignored by a screen reader.

I propose we place a note on PDF14 saying something like this:

 "If the page numbering has been synchronized as in PDF17 and other header
and footer information is available in a prominent place in the document
such as a heading or home page, then headers and footers are not necessary
and can be marked up as artifacts..."
Cheers,
David MacDonald

CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
Tel:  613.235.4902<tel:613.235.4902>
LinkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100>
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