Participating Frequently

Question

Table Summary in Word Doc not Converting to PDF

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
September 26, 2019
5 replies
12687 views

I have created a table in a Word document. I have added a Table Title and Summary (right click Table-->Properties-->Alt Text)

I have tried a File--> Save As-->PDF and a File-->Save as Adobe PDF.

In both situations, when I ran the Accessibility Checker it returned Table Summary - Failed.

What happened to my table summary? Why didn't it convert?

Standards and accessibility

D

defaultxfs9gvffregi

Participating Frequently

I am in a newer version and I "lose" the table summaries, according to the accessibility checker. And I don't see them when I go to the table summary editor. But what's weird is that in read aloud mode the summaries are still there and are read aloud! Wish there was an easy fix!

ls_rbls

Community Expert

I think that in this case, go back to the source Micrososft Word document.

MS Word also have an accessibility checker tool.

If, instead of using "Save As PDF, and you are exporting directly from MS Word to PDF using the PDF Maker add-in instead, then you should use the MS Word built-in accessibility checker tool before exporting to PDF.

Micrososft Word provides a more comprehensive checker tool that offers suggestions on how to make the document fully accessible and also spot errors.

As pointed out before in this thread, You may have to run the checker tool twice: once in MS Word before exporting to PDF, and if necessary in Acrobat (after the document is exported to PDF).

However, most people that have reported similar issues in these forums seem not to be aware that, in order to attain a higher succes rate in making an accessible PDF document, they must make the MS Word document fully accessible before the export action.

Acrobat is obviously the wrong tool to fix or add accessibility to a document specifically if the source document wasn't fully accessible to begin with.

D

defaultxfs9gvffregi

Participating Frequently

My Word document was completely accessible before conversion to pdf according to the Word checker. When converted it had table summaries on all the tables. I think I used "save as Adobe PDF" to convert.

ls_rbls

Community Expert

Hi,

Adding to the suggestions, you may want to try and lower the security levels of the Macros, and just for troubleshooting purposes, you can also try the following:

Disable/uninstall Visual Basic and/or Visuall C++ Add-ins
Delete the old user profile in MS Word and create a new one
Uninstall/reinstall the Adobe PDF creation tool in MS Word
Uninstall MS Word, reboot, reinstall MS Word, reboot, Update Microsoft Word, apply fixes and patches(if any, consult the current release notes for the product); reboot

P

PaulMLlGC

New Participant

This is not a useful set of suggestions and I recommend nobody do this.

R

rachaell33313311Author

Participating Frequently

Hello All,

It has been a while. I was wondering if anyone was able to replicate my scenario? While I know I can fix this by editing the Table Summary on the Adobe end, I'm trying to train staff to make their Word documents 508C before they convert to PDF. But if they have to do the Table Summary twice (once in Word and then again at the PDF end) they are going to have "Why am I doing this twice?!" questions.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. -- RLL

B

bparkertoronto

New Participant

I too have experienced this bug, still trying to find an answer as to why and how to fix/work around

R

rachaell33313311Author

Participating Frequently

Thank you for responding. Here are the screen captures.

P

PaulMLlGC

New Participant

And here in 2024, exactly the same issue persists.

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/44918356-is-it-possible-to-assign-table-summary-in-word

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Brainiac

First, nothing in Sec. 508 specifies table summaries.

Second, Sec. 508 specifies the international accessibility standards for digital content, such as WCAG and PDF/UA, and it's the accessibility standards that state whether tables need summaries or not.

Most tables do not need table summaries. The summary element is an outdated requirement from back when screen readers were very primitive and couldn't announce how many rows and columns were in a table. That hasn't been the case in the past 10-15 years.

However, Table Summaries can be helpful (brief summaries, that is) when tables are complex: that is, they have multiple headers, spanned and merged rows/columns, or how the data is presented might be confusing. There's a short but good explanation from the W3C at https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/tutorials/tables/summary/

So today's accessibility guidelines do not require table summaries: they are optional, and more times than not totally unnecessary. If you think a table needs a summary, then the table needs to be rebuilt or reformatted into a better, more accessible table that is readable by all users, not just those who use one brand of screen reader.

Summary:

Whoever is requiring that ALL tables have summaries is nutzo and needs to upgrade their understanding of today's technologies, standards, and guidelines.
You won't find any tool in MS Word for table summary, but you can try to use Table Properties / Alt Text to meet the need. The "description" field will be carried over into the exported PDF and placed into the Alt Text attribute of the Table Tag.
But don't expect it to be voiced by screen readers because most don't recognize Alt Text on tables and the feature could be disabled by end users.
Table Summaries were deprecated in HTML 5, mainly because if that type of information is needed by those using screen readers, then it most likely should also be available to all users, not just those with vision disabilities. Remember, Alt Text and Summaries are announced only by screen readers (some screen readers, that is) and is hidden to all other users.

References:

WCAG 2.2 (released October 2023) is here: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/ and its matching techniques are here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Techniques/

WCAG 2.1 is here: https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ and its matching techniques are at https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/

—Bevi

US Delegate to the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

AkanchhaS8194121

Brainiac

Hey there!

As per the description given above, while running accessibility checker it returns Table summary failed. When converting word to pdf table content should convert to form fields.

For better understanding, you may please share the screenshot of the error message. If possible, please share the original word file as well as created PDF.

As a reference, please refer to this article: https://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/pdf-repair-repair-tables.html

Thanks,

Akanchha

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Brainiac

... When converting word to pdf table content should convert to form fields. By @AkanchhaS8194121

No!

No no no no no. This is complete nonsense. Please ignore this comment.

Word tables should never convert to form fields.

Word tables should convert to PDF tables.

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

ls_rbls

Community Expert

Thank you for all of this info Bevi.

Learning something new here everyday...

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