Improve tables for tagged pdf and accessibility
Tables needs some improvement for better and accessible PDF output.
- There are no options for vertical table headings. I’m not talking about complex tables just simple tables with a custom amount of heading columns from the left or the right. InDesign should tag those cells as <TH> as it does for horizontal table headings or footers.
- Those simple tables and its table headers should get a scope attribute which says if the heading is used for a column or a row. The use of the either the scope attribute or id’s is a PDF/UA requirement.
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Samantha Ye commented
Yes please! Even Word allows for making row headers so it's shocking I can't do that in the supposedly much more powerful InDesign.
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Anonymous commented
Would save a lot of time for many people!
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Caroline commented
These two points are critical improvements for InDesign!
Re point 1: Currently in InDesign, you cannot make heading text vertical by using Paragraph Styles or Cell Styles. Instead, you have to highlight the text and change to vertical in the Type settings ribbon. For example, I have column headers that I made vertical. Once I exported to PDF, the PDF does not recognize the separate columns, as if there was no text in each. I would think that, if making a text direction option in Paragraph or Cell Styles (e.g. select horizontal; vertical; or slanted by X degrees), then once exported, PDF would recognize the table columns as it does with horizontal text -> thus allowing for proper Header/Body cell tagging, and a screen reader accessible table.
Re point 2: Yes, scope should automatically export from InDesign, rather than having to set scope in PDF in every cell each time you update and re-export the document with the table.
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Nell Chitty commented
This is critical for simplifying the process of making accessible PDFs from InDesign. Currently, the designer has to do an awful lot of work post-export in Acrobat to make a PDF/UA compliant PDF with tables, yet it feels like it would be a relatively straightforward feature for Adobe to build into such a powerful tool like InDesign with all the options already available to us for tagging, formatting, styles etc for creating tables in InDesign.
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Dax Castro commented
Assigning scope and identifying Row and Column headings could very easily be accomplished through style properties. Allow us to create a table row or column style where we can set the scope or identify TH cells.
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Derek Jackson commented
Please improve table options for PDF accessibility. Defining Row Headers is critical.
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Bevi Chagnon | ACP commented
This post is about ROW HEADERS, which are needed in InDesign.
It's also requesting that InDesign correct the bug of the SCOPE and SPAN settings on both row and column headers.
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Janice Bennink commented
Please add the option for table row headers for accessibility, as well as table summaries in InDesign.
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Charlie commented
Adding this feature would be another step toward making InDesign an application that truly embraces and encourages accessibility and inclusive design. It's the right thing to do. How 'bout it, Adobe?
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Mally commented
Improve InDesign tables for tagging compliance into them. We need this feature.
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Julie commented
There should also be a way to skip rows to set as headers. Specifically, I be able to set a table title spanning across all columns (not set as a header) followed by column heads set as a headers. At this point in time, I have to build the table title outside the table or the reader will repeat the table title before each column head entry which is not ideal.
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Mark Wahlsten commented
I second this!
Almost every table I've ever made has had heading columns.
Tagging them manually in Acrobat is really tedious, when the alternative could be to do it the same way header rows are done already (in one click).