Accessibility

Publisle provides structural checks and accessible output mechanisms. These are useful evidence for a review; they do not establish WCAG conformance for a host website or guarantee that every authored equation or alternative is meaningful.

accessibilityProfile() version 2 checks document language (WCAG 3.1.1), heading order (1.3.1 and 2.4.6), table captions (1.3.1), link names (2.4.4), and figure alt text (1.1.1). Diagram alt text and embed titles are structural requirements. Mathematics is a renderer contract: the static renderer supplies MathML or a text alternative. The Research paper profile composes these checks.

PDF export

Use createLatexPackage(document, { pdfUa: "ua-1" }) for the standard override. The CLI accepts the same setting through --template-data with a JSON object such as { "pdfUa": "ua-1" }. Tagging requires a LaTeX format dated 2025-11-01 or later. publisle setup compiler explicitly builds the frozen TeX Live 2025 recipe while registry publication is pending; an explicit --image registry@sha256:... selects a published immutable image. Export never downloads a compiler. Auto selection rejects an older native LaTeX for a tagged package and checks the installed container instead. Run publisle doctor --verapdf to report compiler availability and an optional local validator. A missing validator does not disable PDF export.

The source places \DocumentMetadata before the document class, propagates the document language, supplies escaped figure alt text, and marks table header rows locally for each table. Tagged exports reject blank figure alternatives and invalid header row counts before compilation. Tables retain the Research projection's default of one header row when the source does not specify a count. LuaLaTeX uses OpenType fonts and unicode-math; UA-2 requests both associated MathML files and MathML structure elements through LuaMML. Diagrams without a collected figure asset retain their authored alt/fallback text with the existing research-block-reduced diagnostic. LuaMML conversion has limits, so inspect complex mathematics with the intended assistive technology. See the LaTeX tagging instructions.

The package's pdfStandard and the compiled manifest record the requested standard. The manifest records pdfUaValidation: "not-run": compiling a PDF is separate from validating it. The export API does not claim to have run veraPDF.

Validation evidence

CI builds the pinned compiler and runs pnpm test:pdf-ua over the English and Arabic standard article templates for UA-2 and the English article for UA-1, including figures, a table, footnotes, references, mixed scripts, and mathematics. The job installs veraPDF 1.28.2 from a fixed URL with a checked SHA-256 digest. Reports and generated packages are retained in the Research export artifact. The gate requires exactly one matching compliant report for each PDF's requested profile, zero failed rules/checks, and zero parser/job failures. Missing tools, empty reports, or compiler failures fail the job. A hosted run of revision e95916c (2026-10-10, run 38063436064) passed and retained the reports as research-exports-and-pdf-ua-reports.

The three fixtures passed locally on 2026-10-10 with the frozen TL2025 compiler and veraPDF 1.28.2, on the pinned amd64 image natively and on the arm64 image (confirmed linux/arm64 by inspect) under QEMU emulation; reports for the artifacts persist beside each generated package as verapdf-<standard>.xml. The gate also checks column-scoped table headers, formula and figure structure, document language, associated MathML content, and Arabic/Chinese text extraction. Included figure PDFs must also contain valid embedded glyphs: the fixture generator uses ASCII minus signs because its separate Unicode-minus font subset was reported as .notdef by veraPDF.

A compatibility spike on the same snapshot found that IEEEtran failed with unbalanced tagpdf paragraph hooks. An elsarticle numeric fixture compiled and passed UA-2; that single fixture does not establish compatibility for the other class options or the author-date profile. Both shipped publisher profiles retain their explicit unavailable diagnostic while the standard articles form the supported tagging tier.

To repeat locally with Java, Docker, Python 3, and Poppler installed:

pnpm cli setup compiler
node tools/install-verapdf.mjs /tmp/publisle-verapdf
VERAPDF=/tmp/publisle-verapdf/verapdf pnpm test:pdf-ua
node tools/validate-pdf-ua.mjs manuscript.pdf --flavour ua2 --report verapdf-ua2.xml

For a UA-1 package, explicitly validate with --flavour ua1. veraPDF's validation documentation explains the profiles and report fields. Its automated checks cannot judge the quality of descriptions or guarantee a useful reading experience.

Manual review

Review the final host page and exported PDF with the intended readers:

• Navigate every control with a keyboard; check focus visibility, order, cancellation, and return of focus.

• Check screen reader names, headings, language changes, table associations, mathematical speech, reading order, and announcements after interaction.

• Verify that figure and diagram alternatives explain the relevant information rather than repeat the caption.

• Respect reduced motion preferences and test pause/stop behavior for animation.

• Check zoom, reflow, contrast, print output, and meaningful fallback content with JavaScript disabled.

• Inspect Arabic shaping and right-to-left reading order visually and with assistive technology; text extraction alone is insufficient.

The publication artifact carries static document language/direction, image alternatives, scoped table headers, and MathML. The host remains responsible for page landmarks, navigation, control behavior, and its own accessibility claims.