Accessibility tags - each page in separate div

[Valen34187099j7oo]

Hello,

This is probably a very simple question, because I haven't been able to find the answer anywhere, so thank you to anyone who takes the time to answer it! Whenever I tag a PDF for accessibility, Acrobat's autotag feature puts each page in a separate div. I had always assumed this was normal since it happens with literally every PDF I tag, but now I've seen some other examples of PDF tag trees and realized no one else's PDF has each page inside its own div. Should I be getting rid of these div tags?

Thank you!

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

I'm curious which software or method are you using to create a PDF?

What's your source file (ie, Word, InDesign, etc.)?

And how are you making the PDF from it?

Technically, the <Div> tag doesn't carry any semantic information that's useful to the end user. It's meant to function similarly to the <Div> in HTML: just hold together a group of tags for programming purposes. Like other grouping tags, screen readers and text-to-speech technologies should skip over them.

So they don't do any harm, but they don't do any good, either: I don't know of any assistive technology that does anything with the grouping tags at this time. The <Div> tags in your sample clutter up the tag tree for no good reason, and as anyone who has been in my classes knows, I encourage you to have a clean, lean tag tree. It helps more technologies be able to process the file.

The <Document> tag should be at the top of the tag tree. After that, every other tag could be nested inside <Document> and the file will be compliant. Or you could have <Part>, <Art>, and <Sect> grouping tags for various parts of the tag tree, too.

You can read about the PDF/UA-1 tags and download a handout from our website, https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_05-02_tags/pdf-ua-tags.shtml

[Valen34187099j7oo]

Thank you very much for your answer and for the resources! I will start removing those tags going forward.

Most often, I am importing JPG scans into ABBYY FineReader for OCR, exporting the resulting PDF, and going into Acrobat to take care of the accessibility side of things. It's an odd workflow dictated by odd circumstances, and I can see how that would mess things up.

Also, students will submit work to me in Word or PDF form and I check that it's tagged correctly in Acrobat before I upload it to our website. I would have sworn that it has always been the same and a <Div> tag has always been created for each page.  But I've just tried to duplicate it a few times, and it didn't happen. So perhaps I was mistaken about this happening every time, and it really is just ABBYY creating the problem.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

We use and recommend ABBYY FineReader ourselves, but it lacks the ability to fully — and correctly tag per PDF/UA-1 — the PDF.

Given that you're starting with JPG files, I can understand how a technology might look at the tags for just one JPG and encase it in a <Div> or other grouping tag.

Because you're in an academic setting, you will never be able to control exactly which assistive technology a student will use to access your files. So many technologies commonly used by students aren't even fully compliant with the PDF/UA-1 standard and kind of "wing" their way thrrough a PDF. It's these technologies that I worry will pause or hang when they encounter a <Div> or other grouping tag.

If you can work them out of your tag trees — with a reasonable about of time and effort — then do so. Otherwise, your time is best spent getting more materials ready for accessibility. Students need that!

My best to you!