read untagged document dialog box now shows up for every pdf opened..?

Report · May 20, 2008

Hey,

This only started happening within the last three or four months. Whenever I open a .pdf file in reader, the .pdf will open but also a dialog box titled "Reading untagged document" will pop open also saying that the document is untagged and needs to be prepared for reading. It has something to do with 'assitive technology'. How do I get rid of this box. I don't want it to pop up any more. I'm very sick of it.

Thanks.

Report · May 21, 2008

okay. A bit of work with Google provided the answer. (Just for the record, I could *not* find an answer to this through any of Adobe's resources directly. Even calling tech support. Calling tech support just got a heavily accented guy telling me to use the forums and an Adobe support person would answer my question here. I thought this was a user to user forum. Ah, well.)

Here's the answer:
go to Edit>Preferences>Reading> and focus on the 'Screen Reader Options' section. In the 'Page vs Document' dropdown box choose 'Only read the currently visible pages', and UNcheck 'Confirm before tagging documents'.

Report · Sep 20, 2012

I am having the same problem but also having a problem printing as well. I can 't print anything from Reader. I tried to go to preferences just as you told someone else and I can't even get anything to come up when I go to preferences. All I get is a blank screen. Could you help me?

Report · Jun 17, 2021

thanks it worked

Report · Apr 08, 2015

Thanks. Does anyone know where this setting is located in the Registry? I looked in the Customization Wizard and do not see an option for setting the default for Reading. I had it already unchecked on my installation, yet the user with the issue had it checked. We both used the same script with the transform from Customization Wizard for the install. Weird.

(Win 7 SP1 32-bit, Adobe Reader 11.0.10)

Thanks,

E Powell

Report · Oct 27, 2021

Thirteen years later, Adobe still hasn't fixed this, but your instructions still work! They must think it's a feature, having a popup asking you to read your document out loud every single time you open one. Thanks for posting.

Report · Dec 14, 2021

Thanks alot... really helpful and corrected issues Ive been having for many days! :-).

Report · Nov 14, 2022

Thank you! This was successful. Not sure why it changed! Nov. 2022

Report · Nov 17, 2022

Thank You!

Report · Dec 19, 2022

14 1/2 years later, still the answer I needed! This problem just started popping up this morning. No idea what caused it.

Report · Mar 15, 2023

Thanks so much, the Pop Up was bothering every time.

Report · May 21, 2008

Thanks for posting the fix Jenn. I'm sure it'll help someone else at some point.

>telling me to use the forums and an Adobe support person would answer my question here

Aaah. The joys of uninformed overseas tech support.

Report · Jun 17, 2021

nice help you provided

Report · Feb 18, 2010

Same issue here. I thought Acrobat was broken and tried to repair and then re-installed. Thanks for the steps, I had to do a few more steps after setting the preferences, but now it is "working" as I expect (I don't get the dialog for every PDF).

Why is this happening in the first place using "default" settings?

Report · Mar 17, 2011

I also had this problem, and was frustrated that I could not easily find a solution to it on Adobe's website. Thanks for posting the fix!

Report · Aug 27, 2011

I was surprised to see this original post from 2008.

This problem suddenly showed up again on my MacBook Pro yesterday,

~and~ the version of Java that I use for Matlab stopped working

at the same time.

The other symptoms I have are that the system menu now has duplicate

entries for "restart", "shut down", and "log off". Also, the default buttons

are now no longer blue, they are outlined in black.

I have got to wonder if some update installed incompatible binaries...

Maybe auto-update isn't a good thing?

Report · Aug 27, 2011

Report · Aug 27, 2011

Report · Aug 29, 2011

Just to close the loop on this:

I figured out that on a Mac, if you accidentally hit <command><F5>, it can turn on the assisted reader,

which causes some programs (such as Adobe PDF Reader) to try to read all text to you.

It also changes the appearance of your system menu, and other attributes...

Best,

Report · Aug 29, 2011

Great, I am happy you found the resolution.

Thanks,

Josh

Report · Nov 01, 2011

Incredible that Adobe hasn't fixed this yet. In my own experience, selecting 'Only read the currently visible pages', and unchecking 'Confirm before tagging documents' does get rid of the dialog box, but replaces that problem with a far worse one - long delays and pauses while the software tries to "read" each page you look at. The delay is simply unworkable for anyone trying to scroll through pages of a PDF quickly.

The root cause is apparently the detection of "accessibility" options in your OS (i.e., things like read-out-loud). One solution is to manually remove the accessibility and readoutloud.api files from the plugins directory. I tried this, and it appeared to work.

The fact that there is no way to fix this through setting an option in the software is just mystifying. I tried explaining this to Adobe tech support to no avail - I kept getting the first fix above, which is no fix at all in my book.

Report · Dec 07, 2011

I found this adobe blog post to address the issue:

http://blogs.adobe.com/dmcmahon/2011/08/19/acrobatreader-how-to-disable-the-reading-untagged-documen...

in my case, it's not obvious what triggered this dialog box to appear. I did just install wacom drawing tablet software which attempts to read graphically displayed text or it could be related to some change from an automated windows update.

Report · Mar 27, 2012

Interestingly enough I was suddenly having this problem also and I disabled this feature, BUT now my screen reader won't read the entire document even though I go through and adjust the reading order from the Order panel. Anyone know why this could be happening?

Report · Aug 10, 2015

Many thanks!!!

Report · Dec 12, 2017

Wow, more than nine years later and still helpful. This problem surfaced on both my MacBooks after the latest update. In Preferences I selected "Override the reading order..."

Thanks

Adobe Support Community

read untagged document dialog box now shows up for every pdf opened..?