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a_C_student11733502
a_C_student11733502
Inspiring
September 11, 2013
Question

Please share your PDF/UA-compliance experiences

  • September 11, 2013
  • 12 replies
  • 28954 views

I encourage others to share your experiences in remediating PDFs for ISO 14289 (PDF/UA) compliance. Let’s learn from each other’s experiences.

 

I am working with documents that previously passed the Acrobat checker and PAC 1.3 along with manual checks for WCAG 2.0 compliance – so, the documents were as accessible as I knew how to make them. Below are the errors that I am seeing quite a bit from the new PAC2 PDF/UA-compliance checker. The “fix” is not necessarily the best, just what I have found that seems to work. I am using Acrobat Pro XI.

 

error: Font not embedded

fix: Tools > Print Production > Preflight > PDF fixups > Embed fonts

comment: This does not always work as some font licenses do not allow embedding. If you encounter non-embeddable fonts hopefully you have the source document and can use a different font.

error: Tagged content present inside an Artifact

fix: Open the Content pane. Open Artifact containers to find any content containers hiding inside. Drag the content containers to their proper place outside the Artifact container.

error: Alternative description missing for an annotation

fix: Add alt text to link tags.

comment: This seems an odd error. Some links benefit from alt text but others are perfectly clear without it. Seems like this should be a judgment call, but the Matterhorn Protocol insists on links having alt text.

error: Figure element on a single page with no bounding box.

fix: This error goes away if I tag the figure as an artifact, which makes sense. But if I then retag it as a figure and add back in the alt text, the error stays away.

comment: Seems odd. Even the Matterhorn Protocol PDF (http://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MatterhornProtocol_1-0.pdf) fails PAC2 on this point! This could be a rough spot in the PAC2 beta, not a real error, but is easy enough to “fix”.

error: DisplayDocTitle key is not set to true

fix: File > Properties > Initial View tab > In the Show drop down box, select “Document Title”

error: PDF/UA identifier missing

fix: Create an xmp file that includes the required snippet of metadata (example: http://bygosh.com/files/pdfuaid.xmp). Then: File > Properties > Description tab > Additional Metadata... > Advanced > Append
comment: This should be the final remediation step, after the document is otherwise PDF/UA-compliant. To apply the PDF/UA ID to a document that is not compliant would be fibbing.

    12 replies

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    A
    Al2O3
    Participant
    November 2, 2013

    Thanks for sharing. I use Acrobat AND Pac 2.0 and Cabaret 5.1 for validating. Sad there is not a single tool and there are so many different ways of interpreting the standards. For checking the reflow I use Acrobat and pdfGoHTML. The Sample you supply is incomplete and will cause errors if the document is also PDF/A. You must properly define the custom variable since it's not part of XMP 1.5. Use this instead: http://www.robinschwab.ch/pdfUA.xmp

    a_C_student11733502
    a_C_student11733502Author
    Inspiring
    November 5, 2013

    Thank you for correcting the deficiencies in my XMP file AI203. This is very helpful and much appreciated. Also for the tip on Cabaret - it is now on my list to evaluate.

    T
    Trudge
    Participant
    November 20, 2013

    Thanks for the great advice.

    I am also creating PDF/UA compliant PDFs and validating with PAC 2.0. I am not sure what one of the warning means though. Everything passes except for a warning in the Structure it states "P structure element used as root element"

    What does this mean and if it's only a warning then is my PDF considered as PDF/UA?

    S
    Sparkalyn
    Participant
    October 11, 2013

    Thank you.

    Which parts of that xmp file need to be customized? Also has anyone run into and fixed the error "role mapping for standard structure types"?

    a_C_student11733502
    a_C_student11733502Author
    Inspiring
    October 12, 2013

    Hi Sparkalyn,

    The example xmp file is intended to be used as-is. I am not an xmp expert though so if you notice any needed customizations please post.  As-is it has worked many times for me.

    My best guess re. the role mapping error is to look for something wrong in the Document Role Map. In the Tags Pane, click the down arrow next to the Options icon and select Edit Role Map...

    Hope this helps.

    a 'C' student

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