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Alternate text that will never be read

I created a Span, with Alt text for a large block of text containing phone #s and locations. I ran an Accessibility Full check. Got 7 "Alternate text that will never be read." All refer to a space after a word, e.g., "Pediatrics" in "Family/Internal Medicine, O.B.G.Y.N., Pediatrics 408-848-4095.". The space is in a Span without Alt text. That Span is within my Span with Alt text . ROL reads my Alt text perfectly.

As there is no Alt text attached to these error Spans (which are within the "Alt text Span") is this a major problem?

Acrobat X:Associating Page Content with Alternate Text

Alternate text should always be an alternate representation for content on the page. If an element has alternate text but does not contain any page content, there is no way to determine which page it is on. If the Screen Reader Option in the Reading preferences is not set to read the entire document, the alternate text will never be read by screen readers. Find the associated page content and add it to the element with the alternate text. See the hint for Adding Alternate Text.


KATHLEEN MCGUINNESS


4 Answers

Voted Best Answer

It would be easier to understand if you could share the PDF.

Be well...


By David Austin   

http://mcgraphics.us/pdf/WereHearforYou_DavidAustin.pdf

This is the accessible brochure that went to the Client. We didn't do the design as brochure went to printer. Did do some InDesign 5.5 production revision, articles, lists, setting up tags in paragraph styles. The rest had to be done in Acrobat 10.

• A lot of alt text. Instead of using <span> tags I've used the top level of the block of text, page 2 & 3 in the pdf.
• Table to be alt text so I used <figure> with alt text
• Client didn't want hyperlinks

There are comments pdf.

Any suggestions would be great.
It's still a challenge to figure out what to do as OS 10.6.8, Acrobat 10's Read OutLoud only reads alt text accurately in read page mode, not in read line by line..


KATHLEEN MCGUINNESS   

Hi katm (thought it was you)
Got the PDF of pages.
A tip - to determine what ROL is reading do a save as to accessible text.
You'll note only the alt text provided for a Figure element will show.

You've got renderable text that is page content and it carries semantic content.
If content isn't actually something the Figure element is meant for don't at alt text.

Looking the pages over. I'll get back to you.

btw - You got the ISO authorized Adobe version of ISO 32000-1 (free), yes?
If not you do want it. Scroll down the web page at the link below. There is a link to it.

As you are wanting to provide accessible PDF you'll want ISO 14289-1:2012. (the ISO standard for PDF/UA).


http://www.aiim.org/Research-and-Publications/standards/committees/PDFUA/WCAG20
-Mapping


David Austin   

I added a link to the accessible .tx at http://mcgraphics.us/pdf/David.html. Text shows all alt text and figure text. I've used this before. Very cool feature. Nice on a small brochure like this, but it gets really confusing on our 100 page books, because there are no page #s. I've tried save as accessible text MS Word. Doesn't work and crashes often. When it goes thru no page #s, so figuring out where you are is impossible.

Your comment: Alternate text should always be an alternate representation for content on the page

You mean Alt text needs to have a visual on the page, e.g. TOC shows on the page and then can have alt text?

If so am I doing ok to add alt text to the top level <l> in properties?


KATHLEEN MCGUINNESS   

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