Accessibility Check Reading Order

[Craig_Lee]

Does anyone know of an alternative to Adobe Accessibility Checker for making sure the reading order is correct?

If you use Articles and don't arrange your layers or have text threaded the reading order will display as wrong but it won't be from a tagged point of view as the reading order is being controlled by articles from InDesign. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

No automated checker, from Adobe or any other manufacturer, can correctly assess whether a PDF's reading orders are correct.

It requires human intelligence to determine what an appropriate reading order can be for any document.

By the way, there are 4 reading orders in a PDF. See blog at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_08-18_ReadingOrder/reading-orders.shtml

The Articles Panel in InDesign controls only the Tag Tree reading order (Tag RO), not the architectural reading order, which is controlled by the stacking order in InDesign's Layers Panel.

Proper threading of your stories in InDesign affects both reading orders.

Hope this helps answer your question.

[Craig_Lee]

Hi Bevi,

My issue is that the reading order that is displayed 1,2,3 etc is based of the architecture of the layers panel but I want that to be displaying the TO instead.

Is this something that is possible or does it only show it one way. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

I think there's confusion about what the 2 panels in Acrobat show:

• The Tags Tree shows both the tags themselves and the Tag RO.
• The "Order" panel shows the architectural RO.

You can't change what either panel shows, they are what they are.

If you want to view the tag RO, then view the Tags Tree.

[Margaret R. TPGi]

If working in Windows, you could try installing the free screen reader NVDA and traversing the document.

[Craig_Lee]

It's Macs my team uses. It was so handy to see the numbered reading order applied to the document but want to see that for TO instead.

You would think that was an option to select. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

When you say, "TO," do you mean Tag Reading Order, aka Tag RO?

[Craig_Lee]

Apologies I was referring to the tag reading order. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

There's no need to have the Tag RO numbered like it is in the architectural Order panel because the tags are read in the order they appear in the tag tree, from top to bottom.

In our classes, we teach designers to click the first tag in the tag tree, and then use the keyboard arrow keys to "walk down the tag tree" to see the reading order.