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bren87
Inspiring
October 8, 2021
Question

Accessibility Features All Pretty Much Broken

  • October 8, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 1056 views

So I can't make accessible PDFs anymore.  Autotag form fields doesn't tag the form fields.  Autotag document broke the logo artwork in the header.  Reading order cannot be set using reading order or tags tree.  Basically everything I need to make accessible PDFs is behaving in a wildly unpredictable fashion and preventing me from getting work done.  Two weeks ago there were zero issues.

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    2 replies

    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
    Brainiac
    October 9, 2021

    So many problems in the Sept 14, 2021 update to Acrobat and the PDF Maker plug-in for MS Office (2021.007.0091 and PDF Maker Library 21.7.123).

     

    You are not alone, unfortunately, in seeing that you can no longer use Acrobat or PDF Maker to create and remediate accessible PDFs.

     

    The list of broken features is very long, and covers not just those used for accessibility, but also for forms, interactive PDFs, and PDFs for print.  So many severe bugs it makes you wonder what happened at Adobe.

     

    Adobe did provide a quick fix that addresses just one of the problems: the missing Alt-text on graphics from MS Word, but didn't fix it's cousin problem: decorative graphics in Word aren't artifacted, and instead have gibberish code as the Alt-text. Current versions are 2021.007.0095 and PDF Maker/Library 21.7.127.

     

    Here are some of the problems noted on the forum. See if you can glean any solutions from the posts.  But one of the most successful solutions is to stop using Acrobat entirely. For exporting from Word, use File / Save As / PDF which invokes MS's export utility that's created by FoxIt. For general use, look at FoxIt's commercial version; not as good as Adobe's (before the bugs) but better than what we have now from Adobe. And note that FoxIt is incorporated in China; I note that because some governments and institutions can't use foreign software.

     

    Enjoy reading!

     

    And VOTE to get these nasty bugs fixed at Adobe's UserVoice forum, https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44183082-accessibility-errors-with-pdf-maker-update-sept-20

    https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/graphics-and-figures-create-alt-text-quot-gibberish-quot-when-converting-to-pdf/m-p/12395374#M329908

     

    Good luck!

     

    |    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
      L
      Liv5C47
      New Participant
      October 12, 2021

      Chiming in to say that I have been having issues with H tags being dropped. They exist in Word, but then disappear after conversion to PDF. Using Bevi's work-around of doing File - Save As - PDF instead of using Acrobat to convert to PDF, has helped. However, I hope that Acrobat can repair these issues soon!

      try67
      try67
      Adobe Expert
      October 9, 2021

      What's the exact version number of the application (You can find it out by going to Help - About Adobe Acrobat)? What's your OS version?

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