Blank lines in reading order - can't delete

I wish you had been in my Accessible PDF Forms class this week. Could have saved you a lot of time and effort. I don't think what you culled form the Internet is accurate.

Overview of the workflow:
 

1. Make the source Word file accessible. This becomes what we call the "visible skeleton" of the form. No form fields yet, but it contains all of the lables, instructions, and other information in the form. Running Word's accessibility checker helps with accessibility, but by no means thoroughly check the document for compliance. Therefore: you must have training in how to make a basic Word document accessible before attempting to make an accessible Form from it.
    
2. Export to tagged, accessible PDF. You should now have an accessible PDF of the visible skeleton (still no form fields yet). This version of the PDF should have the right tags on each element of content, have a good logical Tags reading order, and a good logical reading order in the Order panel. (See some recent blog/tutorials at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/#accessible ). Don't proceed to the next step until you have an accessible base PDF.
    
3. Using Acrobat's Form tools, add the form fields to the PDF. Add tool tips, etc.
    
   4. The next step is complex: you must locate the form fields (called in Untagged Annotations in Acrobat-ese) and tag them with the <Form> tag. Follow the guidance here by Rob Haverty, senior accessibility guru at Adobe: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/document-cloud-learn/acrobat-learning/advanced-tasks/accessibility-series/accessibility-series.html?  Click the session for Adding Form Fields to a Tagged PDF.

5. Then, drag/drop the <Form> tags into the correct location within the tag tree. Should look something like this:

<P>

       Last Name [this is the visible lable next to the field in a yellow content container box]

       <Form>

              lastname - OBJR [this is the subtag that makes the <Form> tag accessible]

Everything is tagged correctly, but the blank lines that indicate where the student information goes is showing up in the reading order. I have tried to right click and "delete selected item from stucture," I have tried hitting the Delete button on my keyboard, and I have tried selecting "Background/Artifact" on the reading order panel but I can't get them to go away.

...

and deleted the tags for the blank lines)

By @Meagan22647090np4c

Assuming that the "Blank Lines" are really <P> tags that appear to be empty, you can't just delete them. The blank hard return character is in them, and that is real content. If there's a yellow content container box inside a tag, then there's something there...a space, hard return, hyphen...something, even if it's an invisible character.

All content in a PDF must be tagged, including those blank returns / <P> tags.

The difference is that you can artifact the tag's content (not the tag itself) and then delete tag from the tag tree.

Artifacting items within Acrobat has been royally botched by Adobe in the last few versions. Used to be able to use the Background/Artifact on the Order Panel, but it no longer works. Here's what does:

1. In the Tags tree, locate the <P> and expand it to view its yellow content container. When selected, you should see a small, skinny blue highlight on the invisible hard return. That's good, means that there's something there.
    
2. Right-click on the yellow container, select Change Tag to Artifact. CLick the defaults at the next dialogue.
    
3. Now, the <P> tag will appear truly empty, that is it no longer has a yellow content container nor can it be expanded. You can how safely delete it.

Last ditch method, in case the above doesn't work:

Open the Contents pane, scroll down to find the <P> you want to delete, and do the same thing as above.

And of course, the best method is to don't put those blank returns into the Word document to begin with. Then you won't have to go through this PITA mess.

Take a good course on making accessible Word documents and their PDFs and this problem won't be in your PDFs anymore.

Best to you,