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I'm currently in the process of writing a larger DocBook document, and while it looks decent enough, I've been asked to improve the accessibility of it. After reading the documentation I figured, "that looks simple enough, I'll just add an <alt> element in there and that'll fix everything!" ...Needless to say this wasn't the case.

The way I've been including the keys images up 'till now;

<inlinemediaobject>
    <imageobject>
        <imagedata format="png" fileref="figs/key-down.png"/>
    </imageobject>
    <alt>down</alt>
</inlinemediaobject>

I opted for a graphic element over using <keycap> in this case as it makes the keys in the document look closer to the real thing. However just to cover all my bases I'm currently testing the following, but that didn't work either:

<keycap><alt>down</alt>&#x25bc;</keycap>

The screen reading software still can't read my alt-text.

Do I need to do any other type of configuration to get this to work in screen reading software, aside from simply running fop with the -a flag?

xles
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  • To make a document truly accessible is much more that that, especially a PDF document. Simply having alt text for images is as you state "simple" ... making a document that meets the requirements of Section 508 and compliance for tagged PDF and structure from FO is not done using the "-a" flag. – Kevin Brown Aug 30 '13 at 05:25

1 Answers1

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I agree that making a document accessible is much more than just adding alt text. However, it's a good start, so to answer your question, I think that instead of you need to use the textobject element, for example:

<inlinemediaobject>
    <imageobject>
       <imagedata format="png" fileref="figs/key-down.png"/>
    </imageobject>
    <textobject>
        <para>Icon: key down</para>
    </textobject>
</inlinemediaobject>

Of course, this is two years later, but maybe it will help other viewers.

user5348283
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  • Two years later, yet the first good input I've had on the subject since then. I shall have to give this a try when I get some time over from work again. – xles Sep 18 '15 at 09:43