Agent Wranglers

AXS-70Recommended

Ship e-books with their accessibility metadata

Publish e-books as EPUB that meets EPUB Accessibility 1.1 at WCAG 2.2 AA. The package file lists its access modes, features and hazards, a summary, a conformance claim and who checked it.

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

The European Accessibility Act covers e-books sold to consumers, as Track each service against the Act's dates lists. EPUB Accessibility 1.1 has been a W3C Recommendation since October 2024. It requires schema:accessMode, schema:accessibilityFeature and schema:accessibilityHazard in the package file, and recommends schema:accessibilitySummary. Claim conformance with dcterms:conformsTo in the exact form "EPUB Accessibility 1.1 - WCAG 2.2 Level AA". Name the checker with a11y:certifiedBy. The chapters inside are HTML, so every web rule in this playbook applies to them. Shops and reading apps show the metadata, so buyers know before they pay.

Examples

XML example

<meta property="schema:accessMode">textual</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessMode">visual</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">structuralNavigation</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessibilityFeature">alternativeText</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessibilityHazard">none</meta>
<meta property="schema:accessibilitySummary">All images have descriptions. Headings and a table of contents give structure.</meta>
<meta property="dcterms:conformsTo">EPUB Accessibility 1.1 - WCAG 2.2 Level AA</meta>
<meta property="a11y:certifiedBy">Example Books</meta>

How to check

A build step reads the package file of every EPUB. It finds accessMode, accessibilityFeature, accessibilityHazard, accessibilitySummary, a dcterms:conformsTo matching "EPUB Accessibility 1.1 - WCAG 2.2 Level AA" and an a11y:certifiedBy. A missing one fails the build.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/accessibility/media-documents-and-email/epub-accessibility">Agent Wranglers accessibility playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.