Accessibility: Tags are empty but reading order panel is populated

[Mikaela24410078yt24]

Hello, 

I am working with a PDF that I myself tagged. I saved my PDFs yesterday, and normally when I expand the tag tree - the tagged text is visible in the treet and the pink box appears around the text. This morning when I went to work on the PDF, the tag tree is almost empty, some tags are still showing text and having the pink box appear around the area - but most are not. Despite this, the reading order panel is still fully populated and in the correct order - and I am not given any failures when I run the accessibility chekc - but due to the now empty tags I am not sure if this document is still accessible. Pictures attached show that most but not all tags are now empty and that the reading order is still intact. Do I have to completly re-tag this? Is this a glitch? 

Thank you

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

Uh oh.

Did anyone use Acrobat's Edit tools to add, delete, or change any of the content in the PDF...AFTER it was tagged? Things like correct a typo, change a date or number, add a word or 2.

The clue is the empty yellow container boxes that are nested inside the tags themselves. This corruption of the content happens when Edits are made to the content. And your suspicions are correct: this file is not fully accessible and will not work in some assistive technologies.

One mantra to memorize: Once a PDF is tagged, all edits to the content must be made in the original source document (Word, PowerPoint, InDesign, etc.) and then export a new tagged PDF. 

Solution: revert back to your souce document, make the editorial changes there, and re-export a new, tagged PDF. And from then on, keep your fingers off the Edit tool panel!

[Mikaela24410078yt24]

Hi Bevi, this is undoubdly what happened. Thank you for your response. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Great that you came here so soon and asked.

Sorry that the problem happened at all.

But now you know <grin>.

[daring_artistry5E89]

Adobe, please allow editing in documents that have been tagged!! Tagging requires a lot of effort, and if there's an issue you only discover while running a test (such as my test that uncovered an errant space in "Am erica"), then we should be able to fix it without going back to the source file and starting the tagging process all over again! If we could edit the text in the Reading Order tags themselves, rather than on the document, that would seem to solve the problem!