Tagging a PDF generated from Google Slides deletes PDF content

Report · Oct 30, 2018

I am a bit new to tagging in PDF's, so not sure if this is me or a limitation/compatibility issue.....

I'm using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC 2019 on a Windows 10 machine to create accessible PDF's from a variety of sources. I generally use the "autotag" function to add tags to the content so that it becomes relatively accessible and I can edit it from there. However, I'm running into a problem with a Google Slides presentation that I saved as a PDF and then opened in Acrobat to make accessible. In Slides I have used the "alt text" and other accessibility features to mark it up for accessibility as much as is practical.

When I open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and go to the tags tool, it says "no tags available". So, I open the accessibility tool and click "Autotag document". The recognition report comes up and says 26 figures are missing alt text. Okay, no big deal - so I start scrolling through the document or clicking on tags to get to those items and correct them. I see that on just about every slide it is missing text and/or images in large chunks. Like, all the text bullets with a few sentences each are gone, some (but not all) images are gone. Some tables remain in structure only, but the text within them is gone (so I just see an empty grid of lines). About the only thing that consistently remains is the title text and background color/image on each slide.

Any thoughts on what is going wrong and how I might correct it? I'm thinking my next thing to try is to take the file from Google Slides to MS PPT to Adobe PDF and see if that conversion path renders a file that can be successfully tagged.

Here are some screenshots of a page in the PDF before and after doing "autotag document":

Report · Oct 30, 2018

Disclaimer: I gave up using Google Docs, Slides, etc. due to the excessive problems with accessibility.

In your second screen cap with the missing content, did you check to see if it's there (but hidden) in Acrobat's Content tab? For example, the white background object could now be in front of the text and arrow content, hiding it from view. If that's the case, just slide the "missing" content up/down in the tree until it's visible again.

Definitely try a different workflow, such as the following:

Print to PDF in Google Docs. It won't have a shred of accessibility, but Acrobat's AutoTag might have an easier time with the content.
Google Docs to PPT to PDF might work. I'd give it a try.

Remember, Acrobat's AutoTag utility is relatively new. It works on AI and the document's construction. I'm not surprised that it can't figure out what's in the Google Slides document! <grin>.

—Bevi Chagnon

Report · Jan 07, 2025

For what it's worth, I had this same issue in January 2025 and I solved it by exporting the Slides to Powerpoint, then saving the Powerpoint as a PDF. The conversion got me some tags, but it was missing quite a few OBJRs so I retagged it in Adobe and whew lots to do but at least I have what I need to make this thing accessible.