Accessibility Auto Tag Changing Images

[megan425]

Over the past few days, when I select "Automatically Tag PDF" from the Accessibility menu, graphics and sometimes images within my document are changing shape. I've included one example. I have successfully used this feature for the past couple of years, but I only recently started experiencing this issue. All documents are initially exported from Canva as a Standard PDF. Any insight or suggestions for fixing this issue would be greatly appreciated.

[Meenakshi Negi]

HI megan425,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

Adobe Acrobat’s auto-tagging engine analyses layout and structure to assign semantic tags. When content—especially text or images—is embedded in complex graphic layers (like those often exported from Canva), Acrobat may misinterpret them as figures or alter their shape during tagging.

Please try the following steps:

1. Use Manual Tagging for Problematic Elements: 

- Open the Tags panel: View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags

- Right-click the misclassified tag and choose Properties to reassign it (e.g., from <Figure> to <Paragraph> or <Text>).

- Use the Reading Order tool: Accessibility > Reading Order to visually reclassify elements.

2. Export from Canva with Accessibility in Mind

- If possible, avoid decorative fonts or layered effects.

- Flatten images before export to reduce tagging confusion.

- Consider exporting as PDF/A or PDF/X to preserve structure.

3. Since the PDF was created via Canvas, please try recreating a PDF with Acrobat and check if that changes this behaviour.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Meenakshi