Known Participant

Answered

Table headers fail in Accessibility Checker after September 14, 2021 update

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
September 16, 2021
13 replies
41940 views

On September 14, I made accessible a large document with 61 tables. After properly scoping/tagging tables, I ran the Accessibility Checker and the document passed with no table fails. On September 15, I reran the Accessibility Checker and there are now 61 fails for table headers even though the tables are tagged properly. I had someone I work with run the checker on the same document using Adobe Acrobat 2017 and the tables pass with no errors. What changed with the 9.14.21 update??????

Correct answer RachitJain

Hi All,
With the September 2021 release, PDFs with missing/incorrect table headers are flagged in the Accessibility Checker and show as failed in the accessibility check result.

We have made some changes for reverting the behaviour of Accessibility Checker to pre-September Release. The details can be found on : https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/table-header-fails-in-accessibility-checker.html

I would suggest you all to use the workaround to avoid detecting the table header related issues. Thank you for your patience.

Thanks
Rachit

L

L Wick

Participating Frequently

I've been playing around with this, and found if I click File > Save a Copy > and change the file format dropdown to PDF, the table tags appear to be correct and aren't flagged as an issue by the Accessibility Checker:

L

L Wick

Participating Frequently

Sorry, I should have stated this was in Word for Office 365. I've spot-checked a few other files from the past two years, the files that list PDF Producer: Adobe PDF Library in Properties all have the <P> tags at the start of each table row. The files I've found that list PDF Producer: Microsoft Word for Office 365 have the tags above.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

@L Wick Yes, that's correct.

PDF's exported with Adobe's Producer/Library XX (aka, PDF Maker or the Acrobat ribbon in Word) put <P>PathPathPath tags at the beginning of every table row <TR>. This bug is documented earlier in this thread.

However, PDF's exported with Microsoft's built-in Producer (File / Save As / PDF) doesn't create the <P>PathPathPathPath tag.

So using MS's PDF export utility is one workaround. See documentation earlier in this thread.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

T

Tanvi Rastogi

Adobe Employee

Hi all

Thank you for raising these PDFMaker accessibility issues. We are evaluating the issues for inclusion in upcoming releases.

Thanks for your patience.

-Tanvi

J

josephineg93776361

Participant

Thank you, Tanvi and HUGE thank you to BEVI.

Tanvi, is there any way Adobe can provide a stop-gap while you work toward a solution? If we could go back to the previous version of the accessibility software, that would be so appreciated by thousands of workers! Please, please help us. The table issue is especially challenging.

Thank you,

Josephine

R

RachitJainCorrect answer

Adobe Employee

Hi All,
With the September 2021 release, PDFs with missing/incorrect table headers are flagged in the Accessibility Checker and show as failed in the accessibility check result.

We have made some changes for reverting the behaviour of Accessibility Checker to pre-September Release. The details can be found on : https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/table-header-fails-in-accessibility-checker.html

I would suggest you all to use the workaround to avoid detecting the table header related issues. Thank you for your patience.

Thanks
Rachit

J

JinitB

Participating Frequently

I'm still getting the table headers failing after installing the new update

AnandSri

Community Manager

Hi @JinitB

Try the suggestion shared in this article and let us know if you still experience the issue: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/table-header-fails-in-accessibility-checker.html

Regards,

Anand Sri

AnandSri

Community Manager

Hi All!

Thanks for your time and patience.

The fix is available with the latest update of Acrobat & Reader DC Continuous track: Adobe Acrobat and Reader - 21.007.2009x Optional update.

Please install the latest patch, and let us know if you experience any issues.

See this article for detailed information about this release, bug fixes and how to update the app: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/adobe-acrobat-and-reader-21-007-2009x-optional-up...

Regards,
Anand Sri.

E

Eileen M5E53Author

Known Participant

There was an Adobe Update available this morning 2021.007.20095 but the header issue was not corrected. When will this be fixed??????????????????????????????????

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Can you tell us what today's update fixed?

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

E

Eileen M5E53Author

Known Participant

If you are asking me, I have no idea. All I know is table header issue
wasn’t

D

defaultxfs9gvffregi

Participating Frequently

I just want to confirm that I'm experiencing the same issue exactly. Any document with a table fails the checker and it's tagging is all messed up. I've had the tech support reinstall the previous version for now.

E

Eileen M5E53Author

Known Participant

Yes, table header rows are failing and tagging is messed up. How did you
get tech support to reinstall the previous version? I've asked for the
same thing several times on this site and haven't received a response.
Thanks.

D

defaultxfs9gvffregi

Participating Frequently

I did the tech support chat. First they wanted me to auto-tag the document I was working on. When I did that it did fix the errors with the tables (indicating that the auto-tag does correctly tag tables?) but the auto-tagging created dozens of new errors in other places. The tech support person said that all these new errors were real underlying errors in the original document, which must be fixed in order to have an accessible document, whereas I would think the trouble is new and arising from the auto-tagging erasing all the help the program is, one hopes, providing in tagging the Word doc correctly upon export. He also didn't seem to think the problem with the table tagging was a bug. Instead, he said it was the previous programs that wrongly indicated these tables were tagged correctly when they were not or are not according to the new standards. I said this wasn't going to be a feasible fix, just too time consuming, and in fact meant I would no longer be able to post pdf documents online. Then the tech support person offered to install the previous version and did. But if he is correct, then the documents are only falsely passing as accessible. After reading here, I believe he is wrong and that there is a bug with the way the tables are being tagged as they are exported from Word into pdf.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

@Eileen M5E53 , @JinitB and @defaultq0xq7x8h2yj0 :

Please VOTE and comment about this problem at UserVoice https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44183082-accessibility-errors-with-pdf-maker-update-sept-20

Adobe works on the voting system: the more votes a bug or feature gets, the faster it moves up in the food chain. Posting in this forum doesn't give it much traction, but UserVoice does.

And please inform your colleagues and encourage them to vote as well.

Also tagging:@RachitJain and @Tanvi Rastogi

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

J

JinitB

Participating Frequently

Hi

I have voted as suggested. Hope this issue gets sorted soon.

J

JinitB

Participating Frequently

I am also having this problem. Does anyone know if Adobe have a fix planned. If I use INDESIGN will this fix the issue. I don't pay for this at present. I am trying to convert from word or excel both have tables to pdf using adobe acrobat dc. But tables (1 issue) headers failed for each table.

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

Does anyone know if Adobe have a fix planned.
By @JinitB

Only Adobe can answer this. So far, they are investigating the issue.

If I use INDESIGN will this fix the issue. I don't pay for this at present.

At this time, InDesign doesn't have this problem with tables or missing Alt-text.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

What changed with the 9.14.21 update??????
By @Eileen M5E53

Adobe has been incorporating updates to the ISO PDF/UA accessibility standards into their Acrobat checker and preflight utilities. They've also corrected some "shortcomings."

So what used to pass older Acrobat checkers (ie 2017) might not pass today's checker. The solution is to either remediate the PDF in Acrobat and other tools, or return to the source document file, correct the table structure there, and re-PDF it with the newest version of PDFMaker (or InDesign's export utility).

What was the exact error you received on the table headers?

If you can, give us a screen capture of the error message, and also of a sample table header that's failing. Will try to diagnose what's throwing the error.

— Bevi

Member of the international ISO committees that writes the standards that are giving you a big headache! <grin>

Also a hands-on designer and PDF remediation expert.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

@Eileen M5E53, and do you know what was the source authoring program for the PDF?

Was it exported from MS Word or Adobe InDesign?

And how was it PDF'd from the source program:

Acrobat Ribbon / Create PDF
File / Save As Adobe PDF
File / Save as ... Microsoft PDF
Something else?

Each of these affect how the PDF was encoded, especially for tables.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

R

RachitJain

Adobe Employee

Hi Eileen,

Please check if the table has Table Header tag in the table. You can check in the Tags Panel. You can also right click on the error and select "Explain" option to understand why it is failing.

If this does not resolves the issue, then please share the accessible document on which you facing this issue via a cloud link so that we can check it and provide solution to this.

Thanks

Rachit

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