Document Title

What this test checks

This check tests whether the PDF document has a descriptive and non-trivial title.

Why this maybe a barrier

A document title is helpful to quickly communicate the purpose or topic of the document. If a descriptive title is missing, assistive technologies may only announce the filename instead of a descriptive title, making it harder for users to identify the document's purpose or intent.

This may result in loss of valuable context for the users using assistive technologies, thus creating a barrier.

WCAG 2.2 Technique

This check is related to the WCAG 2.2 technique → PDF18: Specifying the document title using the Title entry in the document information dictionary of a PDF document.

WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion

2.4.2 Page Titled (Level A) — "Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose."

For more information, visit WCAG 2.2 Success Criterion 2.4.2 under the guideline Navigable.

PDF/UA Principle

Section 7.1: General — "The Metadata stream in the document's catalog dictionary shall contain a dc:title entry, where dc is the recommended prefix for the Dublin Core metadata schema as defined in the XMP specification, which clearly identifies the document. The ViewerPreferences dictionary of the document's Catalog dictionary shall be present and shall contain at least the key DisplayDocTitle with a value of true."

For implementation, the test uses the following Matterhorn protocol checkpoints namely 06-003 and 06-004:

1. 06-003 — XMP metadata stream does not contain dc:title.
2. 06-004 — dc:title does not clearly identify the document.