Missing page language Accessibility Checkpoint

Description

Use the lang attribute to identify the language of the page.

Help

In HTML add a lang attribute containing a language code to the html tag, and in PDF set the language using Document Properties in Acrobat. This allows screen readers to pronounce words correctly.

Applicable standards

• ACT Rules b5c3f8
• Matterhorn 1.02 11-001
• WCAG 2.0 (Success Criteria: 3.1.1 level A)
• WCAG 2.1 (Success Criteria: 3.1.1 level A)
• WCAG 2.2 (Success Criteria: 3.1.1 level A)
• Section 508 (2017) (Success Criteria: 3.1.1 level A)

Note: Section 508 Refresh (2017) checkpoints are equivalent to WCAG 2.0 level A and level AA checkpoints.

Change history

• 6.51 Dec 2023 Fixed false positive.
• 5.35 Oct 2019 Align with ACT Rules.
• 5.27 Oct 2017 Fixed false positive on redirect pages. Changed rule ID from AccWcag1-4.3.1 to AccPageLangMissing.
• 5.5 May 2014 Fixed false positive on pages that timeout during download.
• 4.0 Jun 2010 Don’t warn about missing language attributes in untagged PDFs (consequential error).
• 4.0 Jun 2010 Check that PDFs specify language of document.
• 3.0 Dec 2008 Now triggers WCAG2 issue.
• 1.0 Feb 2007 Added.

This page describes a web site issue detected in PDF and HTML documents by SortSite Desktop and OnDemand Suite.

Rule ID: AccPageLangMissing