The Accessible Publishing Knowledge Base covers a wide range of topics on the production of accessible digital publications. As a result, finding the page you need can sometimes be a challenge.
There are two primary methods of locating information on the site:
- Manually searching the categories for topics of interest.
- Using the site search feature for a deeper scan of the content.
If you have a good idea what area your problem falls under, the best place to start is by clicking on the corresponding category link in the category menu on the page (typically located on the right-hand side of each page). These links take you to a list of all topics covered in the knowledge base, and each topic contains a short description to help explain its purpose.
The following list provides a brief explanation of each of the major categories:
- Conformance
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The accessibility conformance topics provide information on meeting the various accessibility standards that apply to digital publications, such as the EPUB Accessibility specification and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
- CSS
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The CSS topics cover the accessible styling of content. These include issues with color perception, contrast, text resizing and spacing, and the reflowability of content.
- EPUB
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The EPUB topics cover issues that are unique to the EPUB format. Accessibility requirements of the EPUB package document are documented in this section, for example.
- Fixed Layouts
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The fixed layouts topics delve into issues with creating content that is laid out on pages with fixed dimensions (i.e., the content does not reflow to fit the screen but stays where it is positioned). This type of content rarely meets accessibility standards, but there are measures that publishers can take to help improve its readability.
- HTML
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The HTML topics cover a broad range of issues related to producing accessible HTML content. Guidelines include how to use elements and attributes accessibly, how to create common publishing structures such as indexes and glossaries accessibly, and how to apply ARIA roles, states, and properties.
- Metadata
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The metadata topics describe the accessibility properties available in widely used metadata standards such as schema.org and ONIX.
- Navigation
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The navigation topics describe how to author accessible navigation aids such as the table of contents and page list.
- Scripted Content and Forms
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The scripting and forms topics cover a range of issues related to adding interactive content to digital publications. Ensuring users can understand and control this type of content is key to this area.
- Synchronized Multimedia
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The synchronized multimedia topics cover the creation of digital publications that provide synchronized text and audio playback, such as the EPUB 3 media overlays feature. These types of publications are often referred to as "read aloud" books.
- Text to Speech
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The text-to-speech topics cover technologies that aid in producing high-quality TTS playback.
Note
It is also possible to access a single page with all the topics on the site. The Site menu at the bottom of the page contains a link to this page.
The search box at the top of each page also allows you to search for topics by keyword. It may return unrelated topics depending on what you are looking for, however, so it is often better to start by checking the appropriate category index first. The search feature is best if you are not sure where to start looking or did not find the information you were looking for in an existing topic.