PDF14Advisory technique WCAG 2.4.8 WCAG 3.2.3 Level AAA Human testing required

Add running headers and footers to long PDFs

Long documents need running headers or footers that repeat the same orientation cues in the same place on every page. W3C suggests the document title, the current chapter or section, the page number with its location such as "Page 9 of 15", and the author or date. W3C publishes PDF14 as an advisory technique, which means it genuinely helps readers and does not on its own satisfy the rule, so treat it as something worth doing rather than a finding you can close with it. The point is that a reader dropped onto page 40 can tell where they are. Whether the repeated furniture should be artifacted so it stays out of the reading stream is a separate question, answered by PDF4, which names header and footer information as an example of an artifact.

How we find it in an audit

We check long PDFs for running headers or footers, and verify their content and position stay consistent across pages and sections. Where a section name appears in the running header, we check it agrees with the section it is actually on, because a header left over from the previous chapter is worse than no header. Then we inspect how the tag tree treats the repeated furniture, which should be handled the same way on every page rather than artifacted on some and tagged on others.

How affected users experience it

When repeated page furniture is tagged inconsistently, the footer barges into the reading stream at random page breaks, "Confidential, page 17" in the middle of a clause, on some pages and not others. When headers are simply absent, resuming a long report gives no cue of which document or section you are even in.

Passes vs. fails

Passes: one name, everywhere. Fails: renamed on every page.

Passes

Every page carries the same footer, report title and chapter and page number, generated from the template and artifacted in the tag tree, with bookmarks and page labels doing the navigating.

Fails

A 200-page audit report puts the title in the footer for chapters 1 to 3, moves it to the header from chapter 4, and drops it in the appendices. The chapter name in the header still reads "Scope" forty pages after that chapter ended.

The other techniques filed under this rule

7 guides on this site are filed under 2.4.8 Location. W3C lists this one as advisory for that rule rather than sufficient, which means it helps real readers without being accepted as evidence you conformed.

This guide is our interpretation of W3C technique PDF14: Providing running headers and footers in PDF documents. W3C publishes its techniques as guidance rather than as the standard, and says so on every one of them. The success criterion is what conformance is measured against, and a technique is one documented way to meet it.