Autotag document error: Find TOC Links??

[helloydan]

Hi all, am a total newbie to Acrobat so please bear with me...

I am using Acrobat (Pro DC) to create a document for work, and am trying to make it accessible for some of our clients who use screen readers. 

Ive worked out the general gist of it, howveer its a 70 page document so i wanted to try Autotagging it first, then going thru and editing the tags/reading order, rather than manually tagging the whole thing from scratch.

However, when i click 'Autotag Document' in the Accessibility panel, it gives me an Error Message: 

Adobe was unable to make the document accessible for the following reason:

Knowledge source failed. < Find TOC Links > [2]

I have no idea what this means, nor can i find anything online about it. Its doing my head in! 

The document was originally created in Canva (i know, probably not the most compatible program), however i have been editing it fine using Acrobat up until now, have ensured all my fonts are screen reader/access compatible etc. 

If anyone could help it would be soooo much appreciated!! Ive included a screenshot of the error message too. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

[Updated by the author]

I'm not able to confirm that exact error message, but I believe it's because Autotag couldn't figure out your TOC and create the hyperlinks to the appropriate pages.

The problem lies with how the PDF was created by the conversion program, which in your case, is Canva's Download / PRINT to PDF utility. It's not encoding the PDF correctly, per the PDF standards, into a file that can be made fully accessible. (FYI, print shops report that Canva's Print-Quality PDFs aren't compliant for printing, either.)

You might be able to manually tag it for text and headings, but any advanced features like <TOC>, <Table>, hyperlinks, cross-references, and foot/end notes will require advanced tools in Acrobat to make a fully accessible PDF.

You can manually tag the complex TOC structure by hand, and also manually create the hyperlinks that take the user to the respective page. The TOC tag structure is:

<TOC>

    <TOCI>

         <Ref>

               <Link>

                    <Link-OBJR>

    <TOCI>

          etc.

Note: this takes a lot of time and money to create manually.

I love Canva...sweet, easy, and with great designs. And it's free (or cheap via subscription). As in the rest of life, nothing is ever really free. The shortcomings of Canva are:

• Developed to create social media stuff, flyers, ads, and other small items.
• Lacks the tools needed for long documents (like your 70-page user manual).
• Because it's free, where does the company get the money to put more R&D behind the program? Given that it's a web-server-driven program, I wonder if they're data mining your files to support their bottom line.
• No accessibilitiy tools. None. Nadda. Zip.
• Only Print-to-PDF is available, rather than accessible tagged PDF or other PDF variations.
• No long-term usage. 2 years from now when the manual needs updating, will you or someone else have access to today's file? Not likely, at least without an additional fee.

If I was creating this project for work, I wouldn't jeopardize my job by using the wrong tool and creating a final product that doesn't cut it. And I'd invest in training in how to make accessible documents.