×

Common Searches

What majors does UMSL offer? Where can I sign in to Canvas? What courses are offered this semester? What are the upcoming events at UMSL? How can I get IT help? How do I request a transcript? How do I add or drop a class? Who is my advisor?
Admissions Pay Tuition Financial Aid Scholarships and Grants Alumni and Giving Athletics Visit UMSL Careers at UMSL

Language in Documents

Many screen reader applications support multiple languages and can switch on-the-fly between supported languages, using the appropriate voice and rule set for the current language. However, currently, screen readers are unable to determine what language a document is written in, or if the language changes within that document. Therefore it is important for authors to define the language of the document or web page, and to identify the language of any blocks of text that deviate from that default language.
Identifying the language of the entire web page or document, as well as its individual parts, helps to ensure that screen readers will correctly pronounce the content.

Techniques for PDF

The following steps apply to Adobe Acrobat Pro. The idea is the same in other recent versions of Acrobat Pro as well, but specific steps may vary slightly.

Follow these steps to define the document language of a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC:

  1. From File Menu, select Properties.
  2. In the “Document Properties” dialog, click the Advanced tab.
  3. Near the bottom of the dialog, select the document language using the Language combo box.

Example of the settings to select language in Adobe Acrobat Pro

Follow these steps to define the language of particular parts within a PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Pro:

  1. Open the Tags pane by going to Menu > View > Show/Hide > Side Panels > Accessibility Tags.
  2. Select the foreign language text in the document.
  3. In the tags pane, click on the Tags menu and select “Find Tag from Selection”.
  4. The tag for the selected text will be highlighted in the Tag pane. Right click it, and select Properties.
  5. In the Object Properties dialog, select the “Tags” tab, and select the language of the text from the Language combo box.

Example of selecting language for a specific part of a PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Pro

Techniques for Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Office, select Review > Language from the application menu to define the default language. To define a different language for part of the document, select each foreign language individually, then select Review > Language to define the language for each.

Screenshot showing the language dialogue box in Word

NOTE: Currently language settings only affect the accessibility of the Word document itself.
They do not survive when exported to PDF. If PDF is the final format in which you intend to distribute your document, you will need to define language in the PDF directly using Adobe Acrobat Pro.
For assistance consult the method for defining language in PDF on this page, and see our Accessible PDFs page.