When faced with a complex spread an experienced, sighted reader will quickly make subconscious decisions on the hierarchy and reading order.
For the best accessibility we should check and, if necessary, redefine the 'reading order' - the order that text on the page is searched and read out - using the CircularFLO Reading Order tools.
When designing a spread in InDesign the order that objects are added to the document is used to define their reading order. This means that often the headings, captions, body text and page numbers can easily be mixed up unintentionally as the document is designed and edited.
The CircularFLO Accessibility Tools Panel (CircularFLO Tools menu > Accessibility Tools) features three Reading Order Tools to indicate, share the reading order with others, and alter the reading order without changing the design of your spreads.
Reading order is indicated with extra objects applied to the FLO_INFO layer. This layer is on top of the main layers and set to non-printing. Share the InDesign by changing the later to printing.
Auto define reading order
The page position of InDesign text frames is considered and the reading order is assumed to be the from top to bottom, left to right. Best suited to quickly prepare more simple documents, the order can then be amended later with
Define reading order for spread
Manually This tool can work in two ways.
- Click the 'Define reading order for spread' button in the panel, then click on InDesign text frames to indicate the order they
- Multiple select InDesign text frames (holding the shift key to add to the selection) before cling the 'Define reading order for spread' button in the panel to apply the order to all selected frames.
Amend reading order
Alter the applied