After applying the Accessibility Checker, Writer says “The text formatting conveys additional meaning”
I haven’t found anything on the web for this issue and I’m stuck at it.
If anyone knows a solution, thank you for your time & help.
The solution is to not use visual text formatting candy like font or background colours, bold, italic, etc., as these character attributes aren’t read-out by screen readers, hence the “additional meaning” is not conveyed, with a negative impact on accessibility,
1 Like
It’s important to use styles for all formatting, or rather, semantic markup. Use character styles like Emphasis to mark text that you would normally format in italics or boldface. Format headings with the appropriate paragraph styles - Heading 1 etc. Software that reads text aloud will interpret such styles and make clear their meaning to the listener. If you apply direct formatting, the software will not know what to do with it. If, for instance, you are in the habit of writing about plants, and you like to use the scientific names, written in italics, and you also are in the habit of writing all words taken from a foreign language in italics, the software will not know the difference, unless you mark the names with character style plant name and the foreign words with foreign letters - provided that you can tell the software how to interpret those styles.
2 Likes