Label graphics for use with screen-reader software, Group page items into an article element – Adobe InDesign User Manual
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Artifact
Cell
Figure
Paragraph tags (P, H, H1–H6)
Story structure tag (PDF)Story
5. Select a tag in the Tags panel. Note the following suggested uses for certain imported tags:
The Artifact tag lets you hide page items, such as page numbers or unimportant objects, when viewing the exported PDF file in
Reflow view, which displays only tagged items; see your Adobe Acrobat documentation. This is especially useful for viewing PDF files on a
handheld device or in other PDF readers.
Use this tag for table cells.
Use this tag for placed graphics. The Figure tag is applied to all untagged graphics placed in your document when you choose Add
Untagged Items.
These tags have no effect on the exported PDF text when viewed in Reflow view. However, they can be
useful in some situations when exporting a PDF file to HTML format.
Use this tag for stories. The Story tag is applied to all untagged text frames when you choose Add
Untagged Items. For example, suppose you have an InDesign document formatted with three paragraph styles: Head1, Head2, and Body.
First, map these paragraph styles to the H1, H2, and P tags, respectively. Next, export to PDF. Finally, when you export the PDF document
to HTML or XML in Acrobat, the paragraphs tagged as H1, H2, and P will display appropriately (such as with large bold letters in H1) in a
web browser. For information on exporting the PDF document to HTML or XML, see your Adobe Acrobat documentation.
Label graphics for use with screen-reader software
If you want screen readers to describe graphical elements that illustrate important concepts in the document, you must provide the description.
Figures and multimedia aren’t recognized or read by a screen reader unless you add alternate text to the tag properties.
The Alt text attribute lets you create alternate text that can be read in lieu of viewing an illustration. ActualText is similar to Alt text in that it appears
in lieu of an image. The ActualText attribute lets you substitute an image that is part of a word, such as when a fancy image is used for a drop
cap. In this example, the ActualText attribute allows the drop cap letter to be read as part of the word.
When you export to Adobe PDF, the Alt text and Actual Text attribute values are stored in the PDF file and can be viewed in Acrobat 6.0 and later.
This alternate text information can then be used when the PDF file is saved from Acrobat as an HTML or XML file. For more information, see your
Adobe Acrobat documentation.
1. If necessary, choose View > Structure > Show Structure to display the Structure pane, and choose Window > Utilities > Tags to display the
Tags panel.
2. Choose Add Untagged Items from the Structure pane menu.
3. To make sure the image is tagged as Figure, select the image, and then select Figure in the Tags panel.
4. Select the Figure element in the Structure pane, and then choose New Attribute from the Structure pane menu.
5. For Name, type either Alt or ActualText (this feature is case-sensitive).
6. For Value, type the text that will appear instead of the image.
Group page items into an Article element
Use the Structure pane to logically group page items into an Article element. For example, if a set of stories spans multiple pages, you can create
an umbrella element that will contain these stories in a single group. These umbrella elements are called structural elements. You can also name
your grouped articles.
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