Glossary
Searchable terminology from accessibility, web standards, and related fields.
43 results found in document accessibility.
- Logical Reading Order (Reading Sequence, Programmatic Reading Order)
- The sequence in which content within a document is presented to assistive technologies, which should match the intended logical flow of the content as a human reader would understand it. In PDFs, the …
- MathSpeak (MathSpeak Rules)
- A set of rules and conventions for verbally describing mathematical notation in a standardized, unambiguous way that can be understood by people who cannot see the visual representation of formulas. M…
- Matterhorn Protocol (PDF Association Matterhorn Protocol)
- A comprehensive set of test conditions published by the PDF Association for verifying PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1) conformance. The Matterhorn Protocol categorizes accessibility checks into those that can be …
- OOXML (Open Office XML, Office Open XML, ECMA-376)
- An XML-based file format standard for representing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and charts in Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Introduced in Office 2007, OOXML files…
- OpenDocument Format (ODF, OASIS ODF)
- An open, XML-based file format standard for office documents maintained by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). ODF includes specifications for text documents,…
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) (OCR, Text Recognition)
- Technology that converts images of text — such as scanned documents, photographs of signs, or PDF pages stored as images — into machine-readable text that can be processed by screen readers, search en…
- PDF Accessibility (Accessible PDF, PDF A11y)
- The practice of creating PDF documents that can be effectively used by people with disabilities, including those who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, magnification, or other assistive technolo…
- PDF Form (PDF Fillable Form, Interactive PDF Form, AcroForm)
- A PDF document that contains interactive form fields — text boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons, signatures, dropdowns — that users can fill in and submit electronically, rather than a static PDF meant o…
- PDF Remediation (PDF Tagging, PDF Accessibility Remediation, Document Remediation)
- The process of adding structural tags to an existing PDF document to make it accessible to assistive technologies such as screen readers. Remediation involves identifying logical content elements (hea…
- PDF Tagging (Tagged PDF, PDF Tags)
- The process of adding a logical structure tree to a PDF so that assistive technologies can interpret the document's content, reading order, and semantics independently of its visual layout. Tags label…
- Print Disability (Print Impairment)
- A condition that prevents a person from effectively reading standard printed material. Print disabilities include blindness, low vision, dyslexia, and physical disabilities that make it difficult to h…
- Reading Order (Logical Reading Order, Narration Order)
- The sequence in which content is presented to assistive technology users, particularly screen reader users, when navigating a document or web page. For sighted users, the visual layout of a document (…
- SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
- An international standard (ISO 8879:1986) metalanguage for defining markup languages that describe the structure and content of electronic documents. SGML introduced foundational concepts including de…
- SMILES (Simplified Molecular-Input Line-Entry System)
- A text-based notation system that represents chemical molecular structures as short character strings, making them both machine-readable and human-readable. For accessibility, SMILES is significant be…
- Semantic Tagging (Structural Tagging, PDF Semantic Markup)
- The process of marking up content within a PDF document with tags that convey the semantic meaning and structural role of each element — such as headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures, and links…
- Single-Source Publishing (Single-Source Authoring, Multi-Channel Publishing)
- An authoring and publishing methodology where content is written and maintained in one master source and then automatically transformed into multiple output formats such as HTML, PDF, Braille, or mobi…
- Slide Deck Accessibility (Presentation Accessibility)
- The practice of designing slide presentations to be usable by people with diverse disabilities, encompassing visual design choices (font size, colour contrast, background colour), structural elements …
- Table Recognition (Table Detection, Table Extraction)
- The automated process of detecting and reconstructing tabular data structures from document images, scanned PDFs, or other non-structured formats. Table recognition goes beyond basic OCR by identifyin…
- Table accessibility (Accessible tables, Data table accessibility)
- The practice of structuring data tables so they can be understood by assistive technology users. Accessible tables require proper markup that distinguishes header cells from data cells, establishes re…
- Tag Tree (PDF Tag Structure, Structure Tree, Tagged PDF Structure)
- The hierarchical structure of semantic tags embedded within a PDF document that defines the logical organization and reading order of its content. A tag tree is analogous to the DOM (Document Object M…