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mary helens142890
mary helens142890
Inspiring
February 3, 2021
Question

Using the EDIT function inside Acrobat DC Pro (version 2020.013.20074) destroys compliant TAGs.

  • February 3, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 607 views

The slightest "edit" inside the PDF (no matter if it's one punctation edit or changing the color of a headline) destroys the compliant TAGS, creating empty tags and leaving content without tags (which had perfect tags prior to the edit). We have done testing for this on cross-platforms with the same result (PC and Mac). We have tested before and after adding the required extra metadata. Same result. We have tested this with PDFs that originate from Word as well as those that come from InDesign. Same result. We believe that this is a software issue, a bug within Adobe's Acrobat DC Pro software.

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3 replies

JR Boulay
Community Expert
JR BoulayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 5, 2021

See this related topic: https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/tagged-content-removed-after-fonts-changed/td-p/11803186

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
hammer0909
Community Expert
hammer0909Community Expert
Community Expert
February 4, 2021

Yeah it's a trainwreck. Best advice I can give is don't do it. Otherwise you have a big mess on your hands. It can be fixed via a manual cleanup but it's going to be time consuming and labor intensive. If you can go back to the author and have them make the edits to the source file and make a new PDF, that's your best approach.

JR Boulay
Community Expert
JR BoulayCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 3, 2021

In the process promoted by Adobe you should edit your documents with InDesign or Word and re-generate a new PDF each time (which is not necessarily longer, but it all depends on the context).

 

Otherwise I agree with you: it looks like a pretty big bug in Acrobat Pro!

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
mary helens142890
mary helens142890Author
Inspiring
February 3, 2021

There are times when I don't own or have the source file. I'm given the PDF and required to make it compliant AND pass the editor's "plain language" test (especially when it comes to punctuation).

 

I'm all for having a perfect source file. But when I don't have the source file and need to make a minor edit inside the PDF, I need Adobe to FIX the "Edit" function from completely ruining perfect tags.

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