LaTeX accessibility guidelines

[Sean Fitzpatrick]

I ran across the following site, which was mentioned in a discussion on accessibility I encountered today: 

https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-system-support/160-desktop-software/1254-converting-latex-documents-into-wcag-2-1-compliant-format

While I don't think PDF will ever compete with HTML for accessibility, it occurred to me that many of these suggestions could be incorporated into our LaTeX conversion.

Would this be worth exploring?

[Rob Beezer]

Dear Sean,

> Would this be worth exploring?

Short answer: yes!

Thanks for this list. There are some good ideas there, some things we already
do better, some things maybe we shouldn't do, some things that are an author's
responsibility, and some things that almost sound like a bad idea. And so on. ;-)

I've always thought the point would come when we would want to adjust our LaTeX
to take advantage of the big accessibility push ("tagged PDF") happening in
LaTeX-land. Maybe that time is now. But I also think HTML (screenreaders),
EPUB (see today's message), and braille (duh), are all better places to invest
our efforts.

A good first test:

1. Just add in "\usepackage{accessibility}" and see what happens.

2. If a PDF results, run it through some of those checkers mentioned.

And I bet we could find a more technical description of things the
"accessibility" package does. Likely the issue of TUGboat that landed in my
mailbox a few days ago has something to add or some good pointers.

Thanks,
Rob

On 11/22/25 16:54, Sean Fitzpatrick wrote:
> I ran across the following site, which was mentioned in a discussion on
> accessibility I encountered today:
>
> https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-system-support/160-
> desktop-software/1254-converting-latex-documents-into-wcag-2-1-compliant-format

> <https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-system-support/160-
> desktop-software/1254-converting-latex-documents-into-wcag-2-1-compliant-format>

>
> While I don't think PDF will ever compete with HTML for accessibility, it
> occurred to me that many of these suggestions could be incorporated into our
> LaTeX conversion.
>
> Would this be worth exploring?
>

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[Sean Fitzpatrick]

With my current state of things this is probably on my "try to remember to look at it in summer" list. Thought I'd throw it out there more birdie I forget.

But I suspect that, at minimum, we could do things like write the short description into LaTeX if there's now support for it.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to pretext-dev...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/MTAwMDAxNy5iZWV6ZXI.1763864338%40pnsh.

[Mitch Keller]

Would be good to get a crosspost on pretext-a11y to have Michael Cantino look at the latest “accessible” PDFs coming out of LaTeX.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/CAH%2BNcPbYu10%2BNH8N6H7Lp--mbgeLJNMY1E%2BdYRrqv0WjKSXrOw%40mail.gmail.com.

-- 
Mitch Keller
mi...@rellek.net

http://www.rellek.net/

[Rob Beezer]

Yes, moving this to "pretext-a11y" would be a good idea.

Perhaps you can put a link back to this -dev thread in that post?

Thanks,
Rob

On 11/24/25 06:54, Mitch Keller wrote:
> Would be good to get a crosspost on pretext-a11y to have Michael Cantino look at
> the latest “accessible” PDFs coming out of LaTeX.
>
>> On Nov 22, 2025, at 10:13 PM, Sean Fitzpatrick <dsfitz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> With my current state of things this is probably on my "try to remember to
>> look at it in summer" list. Thought I'd throw it out there more birdie I forget.
>>
>> But I suspect that, at minimum, we could do things like write the short
>> description into LaTeX if there's now support for it.
>>

>> support/160- <https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-
>> system-support/160->
>> > desktop-software/1254-converting-latex-documents-into-wcag-2-1-
>> compliant-format
>> > <https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-system-
>> support/160- <https://sas-it.rutgers.edu/how-to-guides/guide/70-desktop-
>> system-support/160->
>> > desktop-software/1254-converting-latex-documents-into-wcag-2-1-

>> compliant-format>
>> >
>> > While I don't think PDF will ever compete with HTML for accessibility, it
>> > occurred to me that many of these suggestions could be incorporated into
>> our
>> > LaTeX conversion.
>> >
>> > Would this be worth exploring?
>> >
>> > --
>> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> > "PreTeXt development" group.
>> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email
>> > to pretext-dev...@googlegroups.com <mailto:pretext-

>> dev%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com> <mailto:pretext- <mailto:pretext->
>> > dev+uns...@googlegroups.com
>> <mailto:dev%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>>.

>> > To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-

>> dev/ <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/>
>> > CAH%2BNcPYOhdpN62VxK_VaEnr1dfaoqRryB76vvREqyFfYBuLfDg%40mail.gmail.com
>> <http://40mail.gmail.com/> <https://
>> > groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/ <http://groups.google.com/d/
>> msgid/pretext-dev/>
>> > CAH%2BNcPYOhdpN62VxK_VaEnr1dfaoqRryB76vvREqyFfYBuLfDg%40mail.gmail.com
>> <http://40mail.gmail.com/>?

>> > utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
>>
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>> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-

>> dev/MTAwMDAxNy5iZWV6ZXI.1763864338%40pnsh <https://groups.google.com/d/
>> msgid/pretext-dev/MTAwMDAxNy5iZWV6ZXI.1763864338%40pnsh>.

>>
>>
>> --
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>> email to pretext-dev...@googlegroups.com <mailto:pretext-
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>> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/

>> CAH%2BNcPbYu10%2BNH8N6H7Lp--mbgeLJNMY1E%2BdYRrqv0WjKSXrOw%40mail.gmail.com
>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/CAH%2BNcPbYu10%2BNH8N6H7Lp--
>> mbgeLJNMY1E%2BdYRrqv0WjKSXrOw%40mail.gmail.com?
>> utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

>
> --
> Mitch Keller
> mi...@rellek.net
>
> http://www.rellek.net/
>

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