Video, Audio & PDF Files

Owned by Uni (Hwa Young) Oh
Last updated: May 02, 2023 by Krystle Manintveld
2 min read

Copyright

Copyright rules apply to all web content, including photographs, videos, audio recordings, graphics and text. Only post content on toronto.ca that the City owns or has permission to use. Review the City’s Multimedia Consent form when creating multimedia content.

Video

Engaging videos help convey complex content in a simpler, friendlier way and are often used to tell a story and explain a City program, service or initiative in a more engaging way.

To embed videos on toronto.ca, videos must be:

  • Posted on the City’s main YouTube or approved divisional channels and comply with with copyright laws and regulations. Content includes all visual and audio material, even ambient music captured in the background of a video soundtrack. For example, radio playing in the background).

  • Accessible - closed captioned and/or providing a link to a full transcript describing the content delivered by the video.

  • High quality.

  • Supporting and adding value to the page content.

Audio

Audio content can be added to web pages to enhance a user’s experience and can improve accessibility and inclusivity for people with vision impairments and reading limitations. t can cause browsers to slow down based on file size.

To incorporate audio on the site, audio files must be:

  • Provided in MP3 format.

  • Uploaded to the City’s web server (not the the WordPress Media Library) prior to publishing.

  • High quality but no larger than 10MB.

  • Transcribed - closed captioned/and or providing a link to a full transcript describing the audio and the content in an audio file is required. The transcript must include all spoken dialogue to ensure all users can understand the content.

  • Supporting and adding value to the page content.

PDFs & Downloadable Files

PDFs should be avoided whenever possible. When used, PDFs must be accessible and usable:

  • All PDFs must be checked against the free PDF/UA evaluation tool, PAC 2021 Accessibility Checker, which is the global standard for accessibility to ensure AODA-compliance is met.

  • Tagged correctly to allow assistive technologies to present the content effectively.

  • Images within a PDF should have alternative (Alt) text.

  • A summary of the PDF's content, conclusions or recommendations should be provided as text on the page.

  • All PDFs should open in a new browser tab.

  • The maximum file size for uploading a file to the WordPress Media Library is 10MB. If you must publish files larger than 10MB, email digital@toronto.ca.

  • Content should be integrated on the page and critical information about the file must be included as page content.

  • Always provide a brief description of what the user is downloading in the text of the link to entice the web visitor to download the file.

Version 2.02 . March 2024 . City of Toronto Web Standards