How do you remove container tags in adobe acrobat pdf?

[Random8]

I want to remove the container tags like "section" but if you delete them without cutting the inner content and repasting it above, it deletes all the content. Is there a way to alter the auto tag so it does not use container tags or a way to "level up" the children of the tag like you can do in Common Look?

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi Random8,

Thank you for reaching out. 

Please refer to the information provided in the following help document: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/editing-document-structure-content-tags.html. Let us know if you do not find the information on this page.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

[Random8]

Thank you but this did not answer my questions. It does describe pasting child tags but I was wondering if there was a way to just "level up" ALL the children at the same time without having to copy and past them by indidivually selecting them. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Not that I know of.

But why do you want to remove container tags?  They are compliant with the PDF/UA standard, and AT could use them to provide helpful information about the structure.

However, I will note that excessive <<Sect>> tags, especially from an InDesign layout and the designer didn't know how to prevent them, aren't good structure, but then again aren't wrong, either.

[Random8]

For shorter documents they aren't needed or recommended. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Who made that recommendation?

[Random8]

Our office of technology whom's standards we are required to adhere to. 

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Your Office of Technology isn't giving good advice on this.

Container tags ( <Part>  <Sect>  <Art> ) do not affect most of today's assistive technologies (AT). Most, at this time, ignore them. See details about PDF/UA tags at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_05-02_tags/pdf-ua-tags.shtml

So whether the document is short or long, they're not affecting the end users' experience. They could, however, provide some valuable information to end users...if assistive technologies would use them, but none of us control what AT does to a file.

However, we have begun to see container tags affect certain AT that reflow the content — especially non-PDF/UA compliant AT — and we expect to see more of that in the coming years. So they should be helpful for any length of PDF, not just long ones.  Q: how do you determine what's a short or long document? How many pages? Those terms are subjective, not definitive.

There are situations where container tags cause problems for those who review and test PDFs, like maybe your office of technology. They do slow down a sighted reviewer and force them to expand/collapse the tags to examine the interior tags. But again, rarely is the end user affected one way or another with container tags.

[Random8 · Accepted solution]

At the end of the day, we're required to comply with the recommendations made by our OIT team so I don't think that this conversation is helpful or answers my question.

We prefer not to use container tags and I'm looking for an easy way to remove them. It appears that's not possible in Adobe without CommonLook. 

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Bit late, but PDFix can do this perfectly as well. But is it needed? As Bevi said: no. Not at all.