Adobe InDesign ADA Compliance

Overview

Notes on creating WCAG/ADA compliant PDF documents with Adobe InDesign.

Workflow

Export as PDF from Adobe InDesign.

Major issues

Tagging document elements

Tagging elements by their paragraph style

• Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles (F11)
• For each defined style, double-click to get the Paragraph Style Options dialog
• Paragraph Style Options > Export Tagging > PDF > Tag
  For the most part this will be <p>, but this is also where you can select <artifact> for a whole class of elements within the document.

It's necessary to create mappings between paragraph styles and PDF tags in the Tags pane in InDesign.

Creating mappings in the Paragraph Styles pane on its own doesn't seem to translate into creating the desired tag names in Acrobat. For example, create a paragraph style in InDesign named "Heading 1". Edit the style to assign it the H1 PDF tag. The tag after exporting the document as a PDF will still be Heading_1.

Creating tag lookups in the Tags pane

• Window > Utilities > Tags
• Options menu > New Tag...
  • Name: H1, H2, H3, etc.
  • OK button
• Select the new tag in the Tags pane > Options menu > Map Styles to Tags... or Map Tags to Styles...

Actually, nope, this doesn't seem to have any effect either.

Also, the pages don't necessarily export in the correct reading order.

Tagging objects on an item-by-item basis

• Select the object.
• Object > Object Export Options...
  • Alt Text tab
    • Alt Text Source
      • Custom for manual alt text
      • From Structure to inherit the alt text from the default settings, or from the paragraph style.
  • Tagged PDF tab
    • Apply Tag Custom or From Structure (see above)
    • Actual Text Source Not really sure what this does. InDesign seems to create it's own tags regardless (as opposed to using <p>, <h1>, etc.

Document flow

• Window > Articles
• Select the objects in the document that will define and "article".
  • The order in which the objects are clicked with the mouse will define their order for the screen reader.
• Click the "Create New Article" button at the bottom right of the Articles pane.
  • Enter the name for the new article.
  • Select "Include when exporting"
  • A new article group will be created containing the selected objects.

Once the Articles pane is used to define the document flow, any objects not added to it won't be read out in the PDF.

Alternate text for photographs, illustrations, figures, and charts

• Select the object.
• Object > Object Export Options...
• Alt Text tab
  • Alt Text Source: Custom
  • Enter the alternate text in the textbox.

Links to external URLS

To search the document content for links:

• Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks
• Dialog menu (upper right corner) > Convert URLs to Hyperlinks...

To assign an external link to selected text:

• Select the text to be linked with the text selection tool.
• Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks
• Click the Create New Hyperlink button at the lower right of the Hyperlinks dialog.
  • Link To
    • If the URL has already been used elsewhere in the document, it can be re-used with the Shared Destination option.
    • Otherwise use the URL option to specify an external URL.

InDesign export options

• File > Export (Ctrl+E)
• Tagged PDF
  • Create Tagged PDF: selected
  • Use Structure for Tab Order: selected
    Although I'm not sure this really matters or not?
  • Click OK
• A prompt will appear if there any broken or missing linked assets in the document.
• A prompt will appear if the color space of the document isn't RGB:
  

  The document is using CMYK blend space. Colors are converted to RGB in interactive PDF files. To avoid color changes, click Cancel and choose Document RGB from the Edit > Transparency Blend Space menu. Click OK to continue.

Editing in Adobe Acrobat after export

The following settings cannot be applied in InDesign, and will need to be applied in Acrobat after each export.

• Document language
• Document title

Validating the PDF

The PDF can be validated in Adobe Acrobat.

• Accessibility tool pane > Accessibility full check
  • Create accessibility report checked
  • Specify the location of the report with the Choose... button to the right of the Create accessibility report option.
  • Page Range all
  • Checking Options Select All
• After running the check the results will appear to the left of the document.
  • Right click on any of the items for more information, or to fix the issue.
  • Accessibility Checker pane > Options dropdown (in the upper left corner) > Show Report to view the report in Acrobat.
• The report is saved as an external HTML document, and can be opened in a browser.

See also

InDesign ADA Compliance (Google Docs)