Acrobat Pro Deletes All Alt Texts When Autotagging

Yeah, I’ve noticed that too—autotagging can overwrite existing alt text and heading structures. A safer approach is to fix tags manually or use a script to preserve alt text before autotagging.

Hi @allen_602 

Thanks for flagging this issue.

We acknowledge the issue where alt texts are being removed when using the autotagging feature in Acrobat Pro.

We are currently investigating this behaviour to get to the root of it.

We’ll keep monitoring this thread and share updates as soon as we have more information.

Appreciate your patience and continued feedback.

Regards,

Ayush Jain

Hi @allen_602 

We are currently investigating this issue.
In the meantime, could you provide the following details to help us with our investigation:

1. The product version you are using
2. Whether the issue started after a recent update
3. If the issue occurs with all documents or only specific ones

Your input will greatly assist us in resolving this matter.

Regards,
Ayush Jain

@allen_602 Acrobat Pro's autotagging feature overwrites existing tags and content properties, including alt text, because its primary function is to analyze the document's structure from scratch and create a new set of tags based on its automated interpretation. This process is designed to apply a fresh, standardized tagging structure to a PDF that has no tags or a completely broken structure, rather than intelligently fixing or preserving existing elements.

The way to fix this issue is to save a copy of the alt text before running the autotagging feature. You can do this by using the TouchUp Reading Order tool to review the images and copy their alt text into a separate document. After running the autotag command, you can then go back and manually re-enter the alt text for each image. For documents with many images, a more efficient approach might be to use a plugin or script that can export and re-import the alt text, though this requires specialized tools and expertise. Ultimately, the autotagging function is a blunt instrument best used as a last resort for completely inaccessible documents, as it requires a significant amount of manual cleanup afterward.