Abbreviations and acronyms in EPUB3 - best practice

abbr-acronym_best-practice.md

Following an #eprdct discussion about abbreviations and acronyms and tagging conventions for EPUB 3 (https://twitter.com/tobias_fischer/status/537239302892425216) this is a first draft for future acronym/abbrev. tagging for my companies EPUBs.

• Trying to stick to the "rules for using " from http://camendesign.com/code/abbr_redux#abbr-rules
• Information about -epub-speak-as CSS property:
  • http://www.idpf.org/accessibility/guidelines/content/tts/speech.php
  • http://epubzone.org/news/epub-3-text-to-speech-tts

Abbreviations spelled out

<p>A paragraph about <span class="abbr spell-out">HTML</span> and <span class="abbr spell-out">CSS</span>.</p>

span.abbr.spell-out {
    speak: spell-out;
    -epub-speak-as: spell-out;
}

Abbreviations read as word

<p>An article about <abbr class="read-word">NASAs</abbr> activity on the moon.</p>

abbr:not([title]) {
    speak: normal;
}

Abbreviations read full word

<p>This it the <abbr class="read-full" title="table of contents">TOC</abbr> file.</p>

abbr[title] {
    speak: normal;
}

Digits

<p>Call <span class="read-digits">911</span> to call for help!</p>

span.read-digits {
    speak: spell-out;
    -epub-speak-as: digits;
}

And what about the use of <dfn> tags?:

<p>While they're essential reading material for our job, the <dfn><abbr title="World Wide Web Consortium">W3C</abbr></dfn> specifications are not exactly George R. R. Martin-level reading material.</p>

Unfortunately support for the CSS Speech Module in web browsers / e-readers is not great (some Aural properties have been supported for some time, albeit not consistently across platforms).
Note that screen readers have special modes / keyboard shortcuts to read out "title" HTML attributes (VoiceOver and JAWS certainly do), and screen readers tend to use their own lexicons for known pronunciations vs. letter-by-letter spell.
Old article, still relevant (watch out for the use of dot '.' and space characters): http://lab.dotjay.co.uk/tests/screen-readers/abbreviations/