New InDesign templates for enhanced accessibility
The ETH website needs to be accessible. According to the Disability Discrimination Act, this applies both to content and published documents. New, improved InDesign templates are available for ETH members.
PDF documents based on Word and InDesign files are probably the most frequently used file type on the web. In collaboration with specialist company PubliCollege GmbH, Corporate Communications has revamped the existing InDesign templates. The Office templates are to follow.
An important addition to the existing options comprises step-by-step instructions for exporting the finished document from InDesign to PDF. For example, it is essential to configure the correct reading order, to thread all frames of an article, to add alternative text in the “Object Export Options” and to fill the document metadata correctly. All this is illustrated in the explanation and demonstrated step by step.
Templates and step-by-step instructions
Create accessible PDF documents in InDesignHow accessibility is guaranteed in the document
Virtually all settings and provisions for achieving easily accessible documents are configured in the source document, i.e. in the InDesign file; only one or two individual steps are carried out in Adobe Acrobat. Use the current templates from the CD style guide to obtain the most accessible results possible. The new templates contain paragraph formats with export tags that are important for the structure and semantic properties of the PDF document and therefore for accessibility.
The key to ensuring good accessibility is the correct use of styles (i.e. paragraph and character styles). For this reason, the InDesign templates of ETH Zurich are now equipped with speaking stylesheets. By analogy with their use in HTML code, H1 refers to a main headline and H2 to a sub-headline and so on. For example, the format description for a main headline is now “Headline A4-L: 34/40.8pt (120%)_H1”.
Barrier-free at ETH Zurich
Digital accessibility is not something that is nice to have, but is a must. It is a decisive criterion for quality testing of the ETHZ websites and has the same status as the observance of image rights and web-appropriate writing. Finally yet importantly, all readers benefit from accessible documents as they are better structured and clearer.
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