Accessibility Defaults

FlipBooks → Settings → Accessibility is where you set the accessibility configuration that applies to every FlipBook on your site. The defaults are conservative and inclusive — most sites should leave them all on. This article covers each option and when to consider turning one off.

For day-to-day reader experience (keyboard shortcuts, screen reader behavior), see Accessibility.

What accessibility ships with

TNC FlipBook 3D is built to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Every FlipBook ships with:

  • Full keyboard navigation
  • Screen reader support
  • Focus indicators
  • Reduced-motion respect
  • Skip-to-content links
  • Inline keyboard shortcuts help

Each of these can be tuned in the Accessibility settings.

All Accessibility settings

Enable Accessibility Features

Default: On. Master toggle.

When off, all accessibility features below are suppressed. Don't turn this off unless you have a very specific reason (e.g. you're embedding the viewer in a controlled environment where accessibility is handled at a different layer). Most sites should leave it on.

Skip Links

Default: On.

Adds invisible "Skip to FlipBook" and "Skip to Toolbar" links at the top of the page. Keyboard users tabbing through the page can jump directly to the FlipBook instead of tabbing through every link in your header.

Skip links are visible only when focused. Visitors using a mouse never see them.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Default: On.

Enables the full set of keyboard shortcuts:

  • Arrow keys for page navigation
  • Home / End for first / last page
  • Ctrl+/- for zoom
  • / to focus search
  • f for fullscreen
  • r for reading mode
  • ? to show all shortcuts
  • Esc to close popups

If your audience prefers no keyboard shortcuts (rare), turn this off. Most readers benefit from them.

Screen Reader Announcements

Default: On.

Page changes, mode switches, and other actions announce themselves via ARIA live regions. Screen readers (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack) read these announcements aloud.

Examples:

  • "Page 5 of 24"
  • "Zoom level 150%"
  • "Reading mode entered"

Keep on for accessible experiences.

Focus Indicators

Default: On.

When a reader navigates with the keyboard, the focused element shows a visible focus ring. This is critical for keyboard users to know where they are on the page.

Don't turn off. Some themes hide focus rings with CSS — make sure your theme doesn't override the FlipBook's focus styles.

Respect Reduced Motion

Default: On.

When a visitor has the OS-level "Reduce motion" preference enabled (System → Accessibility → Reduce Motion on macOS, similar on Windows/iOS/Android), the FlipBook honors that preference:

  • 3D Page Flip animation is replaced with a gentle fade.
  • Transition durations are shortened.
  • Animations like the tilt effect are suppressed.

Visitors with vestibular disorders, motion sensitivity, or chronic migraines need this.

High Contrast Mode

Default: On.

Increases the contrast between text and background. Focus rings become thicker. UI element colors shift to higher-contrast variants.

This is automatic for visitors using the OS-level "Increase contrast" preference. It can also be toggled at runtime if you turn on the High Contrast Toggle button (which is in the More menu or accessibility panel).

Don't turn off. The default is safe and helps low-vision readers.

Show Keyboard Shortcuts Help Panel

Default: On.

When on, pressing ? opens a panel listing every keyboard shortcut. The panel is a popup; press ? or Esc to close.

This is helpful for power users who want to learn the shortcuts.

Why leave defaults on

Each accessibility default exists because someone benefits from it:

Feature

Who benefits

Skip Links

Keyboard users (motor disabilities, power users)

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard users, screen reader users

Screen Reader Announcements

Blind / low-vision readers

Focus Indicators

Keyboard users with visual feedback needs

Respect Reduced Motion

Vestibular disorders, motion sensitivity

High Contrast

Low-vision readers, bright-light environments

Keyboard Shortcuts Help

Power users learning the shortcuts

Disabling any of these makes the FlipBook less accessible. There's rarely a good reason.

Per-FlipBook overrides

Accessibility settings are global only. Per-FlipBook, accessibility is uniform across your site — there's no per-FlipBook accessibility tab. This is intentional: accessibility should be site-wide, not per-document.

If you need to disable accessibility on one specific FlipBook (rare), use Custom CSS to override styling — but please don't.

How accessibility is verified

The plugin's accessibility is verified through an automated quality process before each release. The process runs the same checks that browser-based accessibility tools (axe DevTools, WAVE) use. Anything failing WCAG 2.0/2.1 A or AA standards blocks the release.

This catches roughly 57% of accessibility issues — the rest require manual screen-reader testing. We perform manual checks per release.

If you find an accessibility issue in your FlipBook, please contact support — we treat accessibility regressions as high-priority bugs.

Testing your FlipBook's accessibility

Quick checks anyone can do:

  1. Open the FlipBook.
  2. Put your mouse aside.
  3. Use only the keyboard to navigate: Tab to focus elements, arrow keys to flip pages, ? to see shortcuts, Esc to exit popups.
  4. If you can do everything without a mouse, you're in good shape.

More thorough checks:

  • Install the axe DevTools browser extension (free). Open the FlipBook page, click the axe extension, and run the scan. Fix anything in the Critical or Serious bucket.
  • Test with VoiceOver (macOS), NVDA (Windows, free), or TalkBack (Android). Confirm page changes are announced, all buttons have labels, and focus order is logical.
  • Test in High Contrast mode (system preference) to make sure colors don't disappear.

Two notes about PDFs and FlipBooks

Tagged PDFs work best with screen readers

If your source PDF was authored without proper tagging (the PDF format's accessibility metadata), screen readers can't read the text inside the FlipBook.

Fix: re-save the PDF as a Tagged PDF in Adobe Acrobat (File → Save As Other → Reduced Size PDF, or use the Accessibility wizard). For PDFs without source files, OCR + tagging via Acrobat is the best workflow.

3D mode is visually rich but doesn't expose page text to screen readers

The 3D Page Flip renders pages as canvas textures, which screen readers can't read.

Fix: the viewer offers a Vertical or Single Page view mode in the toolbar. Screen reader users can switch to those modes for accessible reading. The toolbar always shows the view mode picker so this option is always available.

Troubleshooting

Focus indicators don't appear when I tab through. Your theme is probably overriding focus rings with outline: none;. Inspect with browser dev tools and remove that override (in your theme's CSS, set outline: revert; on FlipBook elements).

Screen reader doesn't announce page changes.

  • Confirm Screen Reader Announcements is on.
  • Confirm the screen reader is in browse mode (not focus mode).
  • Some screen readers cache announcements — try refreshing the page.

Reduced motion doesn't apply.

  • Confirm the OS-level "Reduce motion" preference is actually on.
  • Some browsers don't propagate this preference to web pages — Safari and Firefox usually do, older Chrome may not.
  • Try the browser's "prefers-reduced-motion" emulation in DevTools.

High Contrast mode looks wrong.

  • The default high-contrast colors are tuned for accessibility, but they may conflict with your brand theme.
  • Test by enabling the OS-level "Increase contrast" preference and reload.
  • If issues persist, contact support.

Next steps

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