PDF lists

Silktide checks that lists in a PDF are built as lists. Each item needs its bullet or number kept separate from the text beside it, so that software can tell how many items there are and where each one starts and ends.

The PDF format expects a list item to hold two parts: the label, which is the bullet, number, or letter, and the body, which is the text. This check reports items that are missing that structure, whatever they look like on the page.

Why this matters

A correctly tagged list tells a reader something before they hear a word of it: how many items are coming. "List of seven items" sets an expectation, lets someone decide whether to listen to all of it, and lets them jump to the end. also announce which item is which as you move through, so it is possible to lose your place and find it again.

None of that survives a list tagged as ordinary paragraphs. Seven steps become seven sentences with no relationship, no count, and no way to navigate between them. In a set of instructions this matters a great deal, because the reader can no longer tell whether they have completed step four of six or four of twelve.

Keeping the label separate matters for a second reason: it lets a reader announce the marker sensibly, or suppress it. When bullets are merged into the text they get read out as literal characters, so every item begins with the word "bullet", or with a stray symbol the reader tries to pronounce.

How to fix it

Use the list buttons in your authoring tool rather than typing markers by hand. Word, InDesign, and LibreOffice all tag lists correctly when the list feature is used, and none of them can when a list is a series of paragraphs starting with a hyphen.
Never type your own bullets or numbers. A paragraph beginning "1." looks identical and carries none of the structure. It also has to be renumbered by hand when items change, so this is the fix that pays for itself.
Let the tool own the numbering, so it stays correct and stays in the label part of the tag.
Repair the tags in a PDF editor if the source file is gone, giving each item its label and body.
Or run Silktide remediation, which rebuilds list structure as it retags the document. See How PDF remediation works.

How Silktide tests this

Find the PDF documents linked from your website, and analyse each unique file once, however many pages link to it.
Examine each list item in the structure tree for the label and body structure the format expects.
Report the document when an item is missing it.
Report each document once, however many items are affected.

Text that looks like a list but is not tagged as one at all is a different finding, reported through the document's accessibility review rather than here.

Troubleshooting

The bullets appear correctly when I read the document

They will. Bullets are drawn on the page regardless of how the content is tagged, so a visually perfect list can be structurally absent. What this check reads is the tags underneath.

It is a single-item list

A list of one is still a list, and tagging it as one is correct. Readers announce it without fuss.

The list has sub-items

Nested lists are expected and supported. Each level is its own list, sitting inside the item it belongs to, and each item at each level needs its own label and body.