Accessibility metadata for ebooks

Retailers increasingly expect every EPUB to carry accessibility details. They say whether your book works with a screen reader, and whether its text can be resized. Every ebook edition in Pubblish has four fields for this: the level you’re claiming, who stands behind the claim, the date you last checked, and a summary for readers. Leaving them blank is fine — Pubblish then records the accessibility as not assessed, rather than guessing.

Why retailers ask

Shops show these details to readers who are working out whether a book will suit them. Each shop handles it differently:

  • Kobo requires accessibility information in every new metadata file it receives, even when the answer is that the book is not accessible.
  • Google Play Books shows your book’s accessibility as “unspecified” when nothing is supplied. The book stays on sale.
  • Amazon KDP asks you one accessibility question during title setup. It puts the answer on your book’s detail page. Left alone, it reads “I don’t know”.
  • Apple Books asks you to tick the accessibility features your book has.
  • IngramSpark collects nothing at all.

The European Accessibility Act is why. It asks publishers selling ebooks in the EU to state their accessibility in their metadata. Publishers with fewer than ten staff, and turnover under €2 million, are exempt. The exemption is real. The market ignores it — none of the shops above sets a size threshold. Declaring is worth doing whether or not you qualify.

Setting your accessibility claim

  1. Open the title, then click the Editions tab. See Editions for how editions work in general.
  2. Open the ebook edition: click the pencil Edit button on its row. To create one instead, click Full Edition Form below the table. Then choose Ebook as the Format.
  3. Scroll to the Accessibility section in the panel. It opens on its own once the Format is Ebook. For a paperback, audiobook or map, the section stays closed. Its fields are greyed out.
  4. Fill in what you know. On a saved edition, each field saves as you leave it.
Field What it does
Accessibility conformance The level you’re claiming: WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2, at Level A, AA or AAA. Or EU micro-enterprise exemption if you qualify. Leave it as Not assessed if you haven’t checked.
Accessibility certified by Who stands behind the claim. You can certify it yourself. Leave it blank and Pubblish uses your imprint’s name (the publishing name on your books).
Accessibility assessment date The date you last checked this edition. The picker won’t offer a date after today.
Accessibility summary A sentence or two for readers — what screen readers can do with the book, whether images have alt text. Up to 2,000 characters. Leave it blank and Pubblish writes one from the file it builds.

What Pubblish writes into the EPUB it builds

When you build an EPUB through Conversions, Pubblish writes two things into the file.

The first is your conformance claim, exactly as you set it. If you chose EU micro-enterprise exemption, the file records the exemption rather than a WCAG level.

The second is a description of what the finished file does. It covers how the book can be read. It says whether its images carry descriptions. It says whether the book holds anything hazardous, such as flashing images. That description comes from the file Pubblish has just built, not from anything you typed. It can never claim more than the book delivers.

This description goes everywhere the file does. The details inside an EPUB go wherever the file goes — Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital and the rest. For those channels it is the only accessibility statement your book carries.

If you send an ONIX feed

ONIX is the metadata file the book trade uses. Most authors never need one. ONIX export is a paid add-on — see Exporting & Retailer Sheets.

It matters here for one reason. Google Play Books reads accessibility details only from the ONIX record. It ignores what’s inside the EPUB. Kobo reads them from ONIX as well. If you supply either shop directly, the ONIX copy is the only one that reaches them.

For an ebook edition, the ONIX record carries:

  • Your conformance claim. With nothing set and nothing built, it says the accessibility is unknown. It never leaves the field empty.
  • Your summary, or the one Pubblish wrote from the file it built.
  • Your certifier, once you have made a conformance claim.
  • Your assessment date, once there is a claim or a built file to base a date on.
  • What the built file does — but only for a file Pubblish built.

An EPUB you uploaded from somewhere else still exports your typed claim and summary. It gets no description of what the file does, because Pubblish never built it.

Only ebook editions carry this. Paperbacks, hardcovers and audiobooks export none of it, because the questions are about how an ebook reads.

Checking an EPUB you uploaded

Pubblish checks every EPUB in your workspace. Open the file from a title’s Assets tab, or from Assets under Media in the left navigation. Click the file’s name on its card. The panel that opens has a Checks section. Cards with warnings or problems carry a small warning icon too.

Two of the checks are about accessibility: one for a file with no accessibility details at all, one for a file that has some but not all. When Pubblish builds the book from your manuscript, it fills in the full set. See The file library for how files are organised.

The alt-text warning

Claim a WCAG level, then build the EPUB through Conversions. If the built file has an image with no description, the conversion tells you.

  1. Open Conversions under Media in the left navigation.
  2. Click View on the conversion’s row.
  3. Read the Conversion Warnings section.

The warning names the claim you made and counts the images.

You choose the claim, and Pubblish never changes it. The claim goes into the file as you set it. The warning only says the file doesn’t match the claim yet.

To fix it, describe each image in your manuscript using Word’s own Alt Text feature. Then open the conversion. Click Rebuild in the page header. Pubblish rebuilds the file from your updated manuscript, and the new file carries your descriptions. Rebuild appears for members who can edit conversions.