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Merged table cells, used properly, are an accessibility solution, not a problem

I often hear from organisations who have been advised, for accessibility reasons, to avoid merging cells in tables in PDFs. This advice needs a fair bit of qualification…

German and French translations on this site

From today we will start to publish, as time and resources allow, translations into both French and German of selected content on this site. Over the years we have developed close working relationships with many valued clients in other European countries. No…

Creating assistive-technology-friendly abbreviations in Word and InDesign

Fixing abbreviations to make them intelligible to screen readers and other assistive technologies can add a significant degree of polish to an otherwise accessible PDF …

PDF accessibility reading order (reprise)

Once again, I wish I didn't have to keep making this argument but… the idea that PDF accessibility and PDF standards compliance are one and the same, is an opinion, not a fact.

Is Zoom accessible?

We are now offering all four of our PDF accessibility training courses online, using Zoom video conferencing. But is Zoom itself accessible?

Nested lists bug in InDesign 2020

There is a bug in InDesign 2020 which can cause the tags for nested lists to be created incorrectly when exported to PDF. Fortunately, there is an easy enough workaround … [Update, 14 May 2020. This bug has now been fixed with the release of InDesign version 15.03.]

The importance of human judgment in determining adequate colour contrast

When choosing accessible text and background colour combinations, it is important not to rely solely on tools to tell you if you have sufficient contrast. Human judgment should always play a part in the process.…

Accessible continuation sheets in PDF forms, made easy

Failing to alert screen reader users that they have reached the character limit in a form field, and hence that any further text they might type would be lost, could have serious consequences…

(One more time…) a PDF that passes an automated check against standards and an accessible PDF are not the same thing—and the distinction matters

I wish I didn't have to keep making this argument, but…

Accessible PDF links problem in InDesign version 15.01 (InDesign 2020)

There is a problem in the latest version of InDesign which means that any  hyperlinks that you create will not be screen reader accessible when you export to PDF…