We (the European Respiratory Society, ERS) wish to make our online journal and book content accessible to people with visual impairments. Below is some explanatory text about the formats in which our content is available.
File formats
Our content is available from ersjournals.com in the following formats. All files are free of digital rights management (DRM).
Journal articles: in addition to the HTML web version, articles other than conference abstracts can be downloaded as PDFs.
Books: in addition to the image-based on-screen reader, books can be downloaded as PDFs and EPUB2 or EPUB3 (depending on the age of the content) files.
Accessibility of file formats
We do not endorse any specific software. Testing for this statement was carried out using Adobe Acrobat DC, NVDA and the Speechify plugin for Google Chrome in Windows 11, as well as Google Play Books in Android 12.
HTML: our HTML journal articles are accessible to screen readers and can be magnified in the browser. We do not currently use alternative image text, because the majority of our images are scientific figures, which have separate explanatory captions.
PDF: our PDF files are accessible to screen readers, but improvements are required in terms of document structure and reading order. Since September 2018, new book PDFs have had chapter- and heading-level bookmarks.
EPUB: EPUB files have reflowable text and are accessible to screen readers.
On-screen book reader: the on-screen reader is accessible to screen readers, but is not reflowable. We are working on a reflowable book format with our online partner (as of spring 2023).
Accessibility standards
Our technology partner, HighWire, has an ongoing strategy to support accessibility as defined in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. § 794 (d)) (https://www.section508.gov/content/learn/laws-and-policies) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/). HighWire audits its book and journal site products against these standards annually. Standard HighWire pages for book and journal sites either “support” or “support with some exceptions” VPAT (https://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat/) Section 1194.22 Web-based intranet and Internet information and applications where applicable.
Contact information
If you have questions, comments or requests regarding accessibility or the content of this page, please contact us by email at journals@ersnet.org or telephone +44 114 267 2860. We will endeavour to respond to your message within two working days.
This page was reviewed and updated on 19 May 2023