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Topic: RE: Inaccessible Page Content, no tags for header and footer??? (Via Email)
Conf: (P-PDF) PDF Accessibility, Msg: 141911
From: Duff_Johnson
Date: 10/28/2005 01:30 AM

> >So... you'll be happy to know
> >that the "right" answer is to
> >NOT tag the
> >header and footer of the page
> >at all - they should (in most
> >cases) be
> >excluded from tags, and marked
> >as "Artifact".
>
> Fine.. but is there a simple way of marking them as artifacts
> rather than using the touch up tool and marking each
> individual header and footer as background, as this is a 50
> page document that makes 100 items to be marked.

In your original post, you said...

"When I create a accessible document (Adobe Professional 7.05), the
header and footer are not contained within the document structure,"

If they are reliably absent, then all is as it should be - no need for
touch-up.

> As when I run the Adobe checker on it they are highlighted as
> inaccessible page content

That's true - you don't want them to be Accessible, you WANT to exclude
them from the document structure. The Checker doesn't know that you
want this...

> and I want my .pdf documents to
> fully pass the checker.

Ah-ha!! May I ask why?? The Accessibility Checker isn't, doesn't and
won't. It has it's uses, to be sure, but actually validating the
accessibility of the document in the strict sense is not one of them.

> Option B, should I just remove the headers and footers from
> the original source document. They only contain date, page
> number, reference, org. name etc.

That's up to you - but I would hate to think that you would sacrifice
the utility of such features on the PDF page in order to make the
miserly little Checker happy... Better to know what the Checker is
really doing - and what it's not doing.

If your client demands that the file pass the checker, ask them why, and
listen carefully to the answer. Or, just send 'em to me, and I'll
straighten them out!

Duff Johnson
Principal, Document Solutions Consulting
President and CEO, Document Solutions, Inc.
----------------
P - 617-283-4226
E - duff.johnson@document-solutions.com
W - http://www.document-solutions.com