Addressing the accessibility of in-text links can be achieved by custom CSS that will render any external link with the URL in only the Print PDF version. This was discussed at the July Cooking With H5P webinar, and references as well the BCcampus Accessibility Toolkit open textbook chapter on Making Links Accessible.

To make this work, we have to add a small amount of custom styles to our Pressbooks. To find where to enter this, from your Pressbooks editing interface look under Appearance -> Custom Styles. Add the following to the bottom entry field labeled Your PDF Styles. The changes you are adding will only affect your book.

Enter in this field:

This style is saying “apply only when printed” and for hypertext links that are not ones with a class name of “internal” (these are ones for links inside our own book, see below). The style says after the text that is normally hyperlinked, add as content it’s URL.

The content below is from a standard BCcampus Accessibility Statement and used for demonstrating the way the external links can be published more accessible in the print versions.

We would not want the URL to be displayed if it was to another part of this text book, say if we referenced >the entry for the webinar where this technique was demonstrated.

Which has added the class internal to not display in the print PDF version. This requires switching to the Text (HTML) editor to manually enter class=”internal” to the href link:

say if we referenced <a href="https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/h5pkitchen/chapter/july-webinar/" class="internal">the entry for the webinar where this technique was demonstrated</a>.

The rest of this chapter is just a copy paste of the accessibility statements provided on all BCcampus open textbooks; it is here just to have some content with external links. You will only see the web addresses in a print PDF version of this textbook.

BCcampus Open Education believes that education must be available to everyone. This means supporting the creation of free, open, and accessible educational resources. We are actively committed to increasing the accessibility and usability of the textbooks we produce.

Accessibility of This Textbook

The web version of this resource has been designed to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, level AA. In addition, it follows all guidelines in Appendix A: Checklist for Accessibility of the Accessibility Toolkit – 2nd Edition. It includes:

• Easy navigation. This text has a linked table of contents and uses headings in each chapter to make navigation easy.
• Accessible math equations. Many of the equations in this text have been written in Latex and rendered with Mathjax, which makes them accessible to people using screen readers that are set up to read MathML. The rest of the equations are rendered as images with appropriate alternative text.
• Accessible videos. All videos in this text have captions.
• Accessible images. All images in this text that convey information have alternative text. Images that are decorative have empty alternative text.
• Accessible links. All links use descriptive link text.

Known Accessibility Issues and Areas for Improvement

The audio in the videos does not always provide a description of what is visually happening in the videos.

Let Us Know if You are Having Problems Accessing This Book

We are always looking for ways to make our textbooks more accessible. If you have problems accessing this textbook, please contact us to let us know so we can fix the issue.

Please include the following information:

• The name of the textbook
• The location of the problem by providing a web address or page description.
• A description of the problem
• The computer, software, browser, and any assistive technology you are using that can help us diagnose and solve your issue (e.g., Windows 10, Google Chrome (Version 65.0.3325.181), NVDA screen reader)

You can contact us one of the following ways:

• Web form: BCcampus IT Support
• Web form: Report an Open Textbook Error

This statement was last updated on April 8, 2020.