read out loud

[murrjames]

I upgraded to acrobat 2017, from Acrobat XI.

In acrobat 2017, when I use read out loud, it reads everything twice. And oddly as well, it reads 5 or 6 fields, then re reads them, then continues down the document?

Is this because Acrobat XI reader was bad...and acro 2017 now read labels and field names and tooltips?

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com · Accepted solution]

Adobe's internal Read Aloud utility is not an assistive technology. It does not have most of the tools that users need, it does not meet the accessibility standards (neither WCAG nor PDF/UA), it is a waste of your time to test accessibility with it.

It does all sorts of odd things like this. My favorite is reading horizontally across multi-column documents.

Test in real screen reader assistive technologies, such as:

• JAWS
• NVDA (free)
• VoiceOver (Mac)

Also, why would you test with Acrobat XI Reader? Since Reader is free, test with the current version DC:2018. Adobe is improving the user's experience in their newest releases.

[murrjames]

as i said, I have been upgraded, and XI reader works just fine for me. Does not read across columns, unless that is the reading order.

I realize real world uses better readers, Atleast with XI, I got the idea it worked correctly. With Acrobat 2017, it is not reading correctly.

I also know Adobe is well behind the technology and barely does what it needs to. DC and Acrobat 2017 are much worse. I am trying to convince managers to go with an alternate PDF maker,,,anything but ADOBE. Their CMS, AEM also sucks, I use that as well.

Thanks

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Say what you want about Adobe, I'm just a volunteer on the forums who helps others in the industry. Whatever you say about Adobe doesn't affect any of us here in the forum except for maybe the Adobe Staff.

I realize real world uses better readers,

Repeat: Adobe Real Aloud (any version) is NOT a screen reader. It is a low-end, primitive, text-to-speech application that has not been updated by Adobe, as far as anyone can tell. However, other things in Acrobat have been updated and any of those could have affected how Read Aloud interacts with the content.

Try this: Disable "Enable Protected mode at start up."

Go to Edit menu > Preferences > Security (Enhanced).

It might make a difference in what you're hearing Read Aloud read, but it's not testing the file for accessibility.

[murrjames]

yes I do realize you are just a forum member, like me. I try to answer some stuff as well...but the more I know adobe, the less competent they seem. And if Adobe people are bothered, the adobe people should make a sound workable application.