PDF as tags but NVDA and JAWS will still not read content

[adamk76568238]

Summary:

PDF has Accessibility tags, the content has a reading order in the Order pane, and the page content exists in the Content pane. Nothing that should be readable is artifacted. So, why can't NVDA or JAWS read the content and annouces pages as empty?

App: Adobe Acrobat Pro version 2025.001.20428

OS: Windows 11 Enterprise

NVDA: version 2024.4.2.35031

Longer story with context:

This is a 200+ page document that was originally made in Word and exported to PDF (I don't know the exact method used to export it). The first page is an accessible cover page that was inserted recently by someone else, I believe by using the Organize Pages tool in Adobe Acrobat Pro.

• NVDA thinks the cover page is empty despite it having tags
• There is other content in the document that has tags and does not read

I am beyond baffled, everything I have learned about accessibiltiy points to that if a PDF has tags and nothing looks amiss in the Content tree, then tagged content should be readable by screen readers.

What is going on here?

[Ravi Gour]

Hi @adamk76568238 

Is it possible for you to share that pdf with us for investigation.

Regards

Ravi

[adamk76568238]

Thank you for taking the time to respond! I don't think I can share the document here because it is a secured document, so I will look into contacting Adobe directly from my work.

But I am still curious if others have had similar issues with their documents. I have seen this issue a handful of times (thankfully it is rare), and am dying to know if others have found solutions.

[SamiGW]

According to this accessibility course I am taking, this is the fix: in of Acrobat, go to Prepare for Accessibility / Change Reading Options / under Screen Reader Options, choose Read the Entire Document / under Reading Order Options, choose Tagged Reading Order. Does this resolve the issue? I am still learing too and haven't tested yet.

[adamk76568238]

Hi! Thank you for responded. It's awesome ot hear that you are learning about this!

Your idea is close to one solution, my settings were already at "Tagged Reading Order". If I choose "Infer reading order from document" instead, Acrobat does some configuring and the document becomes somewhat readable. The problem with this solution is:

1. In this mode, the tags in the document were not followed as designed (some of the headings I put in were not read as headings, for example).
2.  This puts onus on the user to remember to switch to this setting if they open what feels like a "bad PDF". If a PDF is accessible, no user sohuld have to do this. The PDF should just work with a screen reader with default settings.

I did end up finding a better solution, I will post about it in this thread.

[adamk76568238 · Accepted solution]

SOLUTION:

Through lots of testing and refusing to give up, I stumbled upon a solution to this!

This bug comes about due to using the Organize Pages tool to combine two PDFs together. Instead, use the Combine files tool. For some reason, the Combine files tool does not cause this bug to occur.

[Ayush_Jain003]

Hi @adamk76568238 ,

Thank you for reaching out.

We will investigate and fix the issue where tags are breaking when using Organise Pages.

Regards,
Ayush Jain

[SamiGW]

Wow, good grief. Glad you found out about Combine Files. I'll keep it in mind to avoid Organize Pages. Thank you for posting!

[AnandSri]

Hello @SamiGW

I hope you are doing well, and thanks for your time and cooperation.

We will share an update here once the fix is available publicly. 

Regards,

Anand Sri | Acrobat Community Team
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