Table of Contents not reading in Read Out Loud

Hello @garethh44932329,

I hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. We're sorry for the trouble you had.

Could you please share more details about the issue?

1. Your Acrobat or Acrobat Reader version/build and operating system.

2. Whether you’re using Acrobat desktop Read Out Loud from View > Read Out Loud, or a different read-aloud feature.

3. Whether the Table of Contents is visible as page text in the PDF, or only bookmarks/navigation entries.

4. In InDesign, whether the PDF was exported as Adobe PDF (Print) or Adobe PDF (Interactive), and whether Create Tagged PDF was selected.

5. In Acrobat, does Document Properties > Description > Advanced > Tagged PDF show Yes?

Suggestions:

Please ensure you have the latest version of Acrobat installed on the machine: 26.001.21745, Planned update, Jul 23, 2026. Check for any pending updates by navigating to Menu > Help> Check for Updates. Install the updates, restart the app and the machine, and try again.

Please note that the Acrobat’s Read Out Loud feature reads PDF text, including comments and alternate text descriptions. For tagged PDFs, that content is read in the order it appears in the document’s logical structure tree. For untagged PDFs, the reading order is inferred unless a reading-order preference is set.

Use Menu > View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud, then try Read this page only on the TOC page. For more details, please check this article: https://adobe.ly/4fHHgRX

Check whether the PDF is tagged and whether the TOC is in the tag tree.

In Acrobat, open Document Properties and check the Tagged PDF value. The tags define the reading order and identify headings, paragraphs, sections, tables, and other page elements; untagged documents may be read in the wrong order or not at all.

In Acrobat Pro, inspect the TOC in the Tags panel.

Choose Menu on Windows, or View on macOS, then go to Show/Hide > Side Panels > Tags. Check whether the TOC entries appear in the logical structure tree. Standard PDF tag list includes TOC and TOCI elements, and the content marked as an artifact is not read by a screen reader or by Read Out Loud.

If the TOC is missing from tags, marked as an artifact, or appears in the wrong order, fix it from the InDesign source if possible.

Please try the suggestions, and let us know how it goes. If the issue continues, please share the sample PDF file, the source file with us for testing purposes.

Regards,

Anand Sri.