Participant

Question

Tagged content removed after fonts changed

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 2, 2021
3 replies
1572 views

After tagging content and ensuring the accessibility checker passed all of the checks, I went through the document using Edit PDF to change the fonts. As I did this, it removed the content from the tags. I expect to use the correct fonts AND have an accurately tagged document, but that doesn't seem possible with the numerous things I've tried. Is there a way to do both, or do I only get one or the other?

This topic has been closed for replies.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

"VOTE UP THIS FEATURE if you want it fixed"

It's a rigged vote! 😉

Even once logged in I cannot vote, the "Vote" button does nothing at all.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

You encountered one of Acrobat's tragic flaws: once a document is tagged, no edits of any kind can be made to the content. If anything is changed, such as correct a typo or edit the text, change the color of some text, change the fonts used...whatever, the tags lose their content containers (the yellow bankers' boxes in the tag tree).

Change your workflow. Ensure all content is correct and finalized before making the PDF. And don't edit it once the PDF is tagged!

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

mary helens142890

Inspiring

We have discovered the same issue with using the "edit" funtion...it destroys all the compliant tags. This didn't used to happen. We always try to make the source file perfect before exporting to PDF. But, there are some last-minute edits that may require an edit within the PDF. If this isn't possible, why even HAVE the EDIT function??

Really disappointed in Adobe that you would say "change your workflow." How about "Adobe should FIX the EDIT function so it doesn't destroy the perfectly compliant TAGs." Seriously.

Mary Helen Shuff | Art Director & Senior Graphic Designer | 508-Compliancy Coordinator | Forms Coordinator | Printing Liaison

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

@mary helens142890 This is a user-to-user forum. Although Adobe manages it, Adobe employees rarely chime in. The rest of us here are unpaid volunteers, trying to help our fellow workerbees.

The titles you see like "Adobe Community Professional" only mean that Adobe thinks we're experts in something and invited us to work for free in this forum to help others.

I said "Change your workflow," not Adobe. Please read posts carefully before responding.

This problem with content disappearing from tags (and other issues, BTW, like combining all <LI> in a list into just one <LI>) has been happening since Adobe added tags and editing tools to PDF in the early 2000s. Note that the PDF/UA-1 accessibility standard wasn't even developed until years later, in 2012.

I recommend all my clients (government, corporate, designers, individuals) to adjust their workflow because I don't see this problem getting fixed any time soon. Many reasons (all are IMHO):

Adobe has no financial incentive to do this. I'm estimating only about 5-10% of PDFs created must meet accessibility standards. And Adobe's marketing department (which decides what features will be in our software) doesn't appear to give a rat's patootie about accessibility for 1/3 of the world's population. They want to market shiny new widgets, not bug fixes.
As a former PDF programmer going far back to the program's development 30+ years ago, this is a tough nut to crack. I don't see a reasonable fix any time in the near future, even if Adobe wanted to fix the problem.

So plan on 3 things:

You and I will be retired before this bug gets fixed. IF it gets fixed.
PDF will be retired and superceded by some other file format in the future, before it gets fixed.
We all have to adjust our workflows for the reality we have now, so ALL edits must be done in the source document and a new, nearly fully compliant PDF exported.

One of the key ways to get Adobe to fix something is through UserVoice. Note that Adobe works according to the number of votes these requests get from customers, so VOTE UP THIS FEATURE if you want it fixed. https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/36540487-bug-edit-pdf-text-editing-breaks-tag-structure

Our firm keeps a running list of accessibility features/votes for InDesign, Acrobat, and MS Word at www.PubCom.com/vote You're welcome to visit it to quickly find the features you want (and therefore, votes will be consolidated at UserVoice, helping all of us get the features we need).

In peace and solidarity,

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

D

Dannielle5ED3Author

Participant

I was able to work around this by manually retagging the entire document.

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