RE: Creating an accessible Table of Contents

Hi Vivienne,

 

Our company regularly produces accessible PDFs for our clients- we have to
avoid exactly the problems you describe below.

 

We use the following process:

 

1.       Create the original document in Microsoft Word 2010;

2.       Add the Table of Contents in MS Word, by using the References >
Table of Contents feature. We use "Automatic Table 2" to set the format of
the table.

3.       Use CommonLook PDF <http://www.commonlook.com/CommonLook-PDF> , a
plugin for Acrobat, to do the actual conversion. We've found that it
produces screen reader-friendly, consistent Tables of Contents.

 

I've tested the results in JAWS 10: the dots are not read out.

 

Andy Keyworth
Senior Web Accessibility Specialist |  <http://www.tbase.com/> T-Base
Communications Inc.
19 Main Street │ Ottawa, ON │ K1S 1A9
telephone. 613. 236. 0866 Ext. 256 │ fax. 613. 236. 0484 
email.  <mailto:akeyworth@tbase.com> akeyworth@tbase.com

 

From: Vivienne CONWAY [mailto:v.conway@ecu.edu.au] 
Sent: February-22-13 9:39 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org list
Subject: Creating an accessible Table of Contents

 

Hi all

 

I'm wondering if anyone has discovered how to create a Table of Contents in
Word that reads properly with a screen reader when the document is put into
PDF..  Using the automatic TOC function you get a disaster for reading -
some styles read all the dots in the dot leader, others read something like
89 dot and then the page number.  At best if you choose the option for the
solid line which is recommended you get "Chapter one one (page number)" with
no pause - and that's only if you have the punctuation reading turned right
down to minimal setting. As soon as you set the screen reader to read 'most'
punctuation it reads either the dots or the number of dots etc.

 

I'm working with a local government who create a lot of large documents such
as council meetings which are put into PDF that they need to make accessible
and are accessed throuigh their website.  At present the TOC function is
causing real headaches.  We've tried all kinds of options in Word they none
of them read nicely from the PDF document that is created after tagging the
Word document properly.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Regards

 

Vivienne L. Conway, B.IT(Hons), MACS CT, AALIA(cs)

PhD Candidate & Sessional Lecturer, Edith Cowan University, Perth, W.A.

Director, Web Key IT Pty Ltd.

v.conway@ecu.edu.au

v.conway@webkeyit.com

Mob: 0415 383 673

 

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