If you’ve done any work for accessibility, from setting up InDesign templates to remediating PDFs, you know it can be a lot of time-consuming work. So, any automation you can employ to speed up the process can be hugely beneficial. Here are 5 great scripts for InDesign to speed up the process of making documents accessible. Note: Most of these were taken from Kathryn Collins’ article on Accessibility Tools in issue 35 of CreativePro Magazine.
Color Contrast: Dax Castro’s Color Contrast Validator InDesign script generates an easy-to-understand matrix showcasing all the WCAG 2.1–compliant color combinations from your document’s color palette.
Checking Documents: Keith Gilbert’s free InDesign scripts cover a myriad of tasks you’d wish InDesign did better. Notables include Check Document for Accessibility, and Update TOCs, which updates tables of contents automatically.
Alt text: Dax Castro’s AccessibilityScripts.com is your alt text go-to. Alt-text Automator (imports alt text into your document), Alt-text Extractor (for easy review and editing), and Turbo Table Headings (set table headings with a single click) are huge time-savers.
Document Structure: Chax Accessibility Training’s free Articles Panel InDesign script was created in conjunction with Keith Gilbert. This gem lets you toggle between hiding and showing everything in your articles panel, to ensure nothing is left behind accidentally.
Hyperlinks: As Chad Chelius pointed out in issue 11 of CreativePro Magazine, using Shared Destinations for hyperlinks can cause big problems from an accessibility standpoint. Happily, there’s a script by Keith Gilbert that you can use to stamp them out (convert them to regular hyperlinks) before exporting your PDF.
This article was last modified on September 6, 2024
This article was first published on September 6, 2024
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