How to Tag Struck-Through Text in the Advanced Editor

Product

Advanced Editor (Web-based CL PDF)

Feature

Tagging

Document Element

Actual Text for Strikethrough, Highlight, Underline, and Other Formatting Properties

Overview

Strikethrough is often used in legal drafts to indicate text that's been marked for deletion but hasn't actually been removed yet, so that reviewers can read the proposed deletions and indicate whether they approve. Because a screen reader doesn't announce visual formatting like strikethrough on its own, this meaning has to be conveyed to assistive technology through Actual text.

Note: The concepts and steps outlined here also apply to documents that use highlight, underline, or other formatting "properties" to convey information — not just strikethrough.

Prerequisites 

Use this process any time formatting in the document — strikethrough, highlight, underline, or similar — is being used to convey information (such as proposed deletions in a legal draft) that a screen reader user also needs to understand.

Steps to Follow

To tag text that's been struck-through:

1. Tag the paragraph as needed.
2. Within the P tag, put the struck-through text in a Span tag.
3. For that Span tag, assign Actual text. The Actual text should read: "deleted text begins – [the text that's been struck-through] – deleted text ends."

This can be a time-consuming task, but CommonLook PDF has functionality to speed it up. Once the struck-through text is in a Span tag, you can copy that text into the Actual text field instead of retyping it:

1. Select the Span tag.
2. Right-click (or otherwise open the context menu) and choose "Copy Contents."
3. In the sub-menu, choose to copy to Actual text. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+F2.)
4. After the tag's contents have been copied to the Actual text, add "deleted text begins" and "deleted text ends" around it as needed.
   
   

Note: You don't have to use the literal words "deleted text begins" and "deleted text ends" — that's just an example. If the strikethrough (or highlight, underline, etc.) was meant to convey something else, edit the Actual text accordingly.
 

Screenshots

Below are some screenshots to help illustrate.