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Participant
October 23, 2024
Question

Type on a Path Tool: Issues with Exporting Accessible Tagged PDF in InDesign

  • October 23, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 173 views

Hi, is it possible to get text created using the "Type on a path" tool to export properly when creating a tagged PDF from an InDesign document? I've applied a paragraph style with the tag specified (H3 in this case) under Paragraph Style Options > Export Tagging > PDF. I've tried both

  • directly adding said object to the articles panel and
  • anchoring the type-on-a-path-object to a location within a text frame that's already in the articles panel

as well as defining the content type as graphic, text, and unassigned. In the best case (text or graphic content type, separately added to articles panel), I get each glyph as a separate object within the H3 tag, ordered about how you'd expect (and NVDA reads each letter separately). If I define the content type as text and anchor it inside another text frame, I get each glyph as a separate object again BUT in a completely new article. If it's unassigned (or marked as a graphic and then anchored), the text isn't tagged at all. Hmm.

 

Seems like I can use Acrobat Pro to manually tag the text created with type on a path using the reading order dialog, but that's incredibly inefficient. Is there a way to get the text to behave coming right out of InDesign? (Yes, I have "Use for tagging order in tagged PDF" checked in ID. The other content is all exporting as expected.)

 

Any tips or does this just not work? Thanks!

 

 

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1 reply

Mike Witherell
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 12, 2024

Your observations are correct. It doesn't export it correctly. 

Interesting, that in Acrobat Pro, if you strip out the tags and then AutoTag it, Acrobat (after quite a long pause) runs all the text together. IOW, Acrobat cannot understand it either.

I would suggest making a separate InDesign document that is visually simplified, not using Type on a Path, so that you can export the text in a readable way.

Mike Witherell