WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine Beta Enrollment

Enroll Here To Participate in the New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine Beta

Using the New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine

For organizations enrolled in the Beta of our New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine, a PDF Output Engine option will be available on the PDF Export screen.  Stepping into the Reflow Engine is as easy as changing the PDF Output Engine to the WCAG 2.1 Beta option.

What to expect when using the New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine

The main advantage of Reflow is its ability to match document content to screen size and zoom level.  It’s great for small format devices like phones and tablets and helps users who use advanced application-level zoom.  Instead of just enlarging the visible area, Reflow takes it a step further by reorganizing the text; allowing it to wrap and create a single vertical scroll experience.

Reflow is a perfect use case for textbooks and other wide format text.  In this example, the February 2023 Presidential State of the Union address has been enlarged to 400%.  On the left image page view both horizontal and vertical scroll bars are displayed.  On the right image, reflow view, only the vertical scroll bar is displayed.  Additionally, more text from the first column of the Presidential State of the Union address is displayed; again, making this an ideal option for small format devices.

Reflow offers formatted list and table options as well.  The New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine will automatically add the formatting necessary to visually differentiate table cells and list items at zoom.  As noted in this 2015 Volkswagen, Skoda production report a zoom level of 300% drops the right hand two columns of this table and requires the user to scroll both horizontally and vertically to see all its information.  Reflow allows the user to consume all the information at once.

As with tables, lists also carry a unique formatting.  Consider this list content which has been abandoned in the center of the visible area.  In a zoomed view scenario above 250%, the end user would be forced to locate that content which is outside the visible area.  In the Reflow reading view it is the primary content for the user.

Current Known Limitations of the New WCAG 2.1: Reflow Engine

• Reflow functions for 90% of Equidox zone types.  We’re still perfecting Footnotes and Custom Graphic and Image content.
• Embedded Font Subsets.  Because of the way Reflow reorganizes content; partially embedded fonts will lose their visual distinctiveness.  This can be seen in the previous Table example.  Other font issues in Reflow may occur; including font exchange or color adjustments.
• Reflow interacts differently within the application that is being used ie: Acrobat Reflow vs Foxit Reflow.  Equidox is optimized for Acrobat Reflow but has shown to work well in Foxit Reflow.
• Abbyy Finereader and other layered OCR documents have seen document text shadowing at the page level.