Document Title

Requirement

WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.2, Page Titled (Level A), states: “Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose.” Documents published as web content fall under it. W3C technique PDF18 describes meeting it for PDF files by setting the Title entry in the document information dictionary.

Distinctions

• Title vs. filename. The filename (e.g., smithvgr.wpd) is not the title. When no title is set, many viewers display the filename instead, and a screen reader may read it aloud.
• Title vs. Subject. Older word processors, including WordPerfect 6.0a, had a Subject field but no Title field. Subject can be a reasonable source for a missing title when it is uniquely descriptive.
• Present vs. descriptive. A title can be present but still fail to describe the document, such as “Report” or a default filename stamped in by a print-to-PDF step.
• Unique vs. duplicated. Across a document collection, many files can share one identical title. Rietta’s articles argue that identically titled documents are not compliant, because a screen reader user cannot tell them apart; see the articles listed below. For analysis across a whole collection, see Document Corpus (Accessibility).

Sources

• Understanding Success Criterion 2.4.2: Page Titled, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Retrieved September 23, 2026.
• PDF18: Specifying the document title using the Title entry in the document information dictionary of a PDF document, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Retrieved September 23, 2026.