Export to interactive PDF yields only <span> tags?

Report · Aug 30, 2016

Why does my indesign file, when exporting a fully tagged and organized structured document yields <span> tags across the entire interactive PDF? Anyone run into this?

I know I can change the tag once in PDF but why is indesign not exporting with the already assigned tags, and mapped styles to the tags that I've set. I recall fixing this one time but all current efforts have been futile. Having to tag for accessibly twice is difficult on documents with pages counts above 30.

Any help would be appreciated it!

Report · Nov 29, 2017

Did you find any answer to this? I am having the same issue!

Report · Nov 30, 2017

Why do you care?

<span> tags are non-semantic tags but can be useful in some cases, for example for setting a language, or adding ActualText text replacements and so forth (which can be extremely useful, and difficult to achieve without the <span> tag).

This is not much different from the world of HTML where <span> tags (or <div> tags) are used extensively, mostly for technical and not for semantic reasons.

Neither <span> nor <div> reduce the degree of accessibility. Assistive technology should normally just skip them when presenting content.

Along these lines, nothing in PDF/UA (or as far as I can tell WCAG) disallow or discourage the use of <span> tags.

Report · Nov 30, 2017

This is a major problem, because I am only seeing Figures, spans and tables, nothing else! I don't see any headings, paragraphs, nothing. Okay the tags panel is correct, but the TURO tool isn't, and I like using it better than slogging through the tags right off. This is not normal behaviour at all, otherwise I have nothing against the span tag at all

Report · Dec 01, 2017

Tagged PDF is called Tagged PDF because it relies on tags to represent the semantic structure. Tagged PDF is not based on or determined by TURO (that is, it is not based on or depending on the sequence in which content objects are contained in the PDF syntax). You may have to get used to the Tags panel - it's your friend if you want to get tagged PDF right...

Report · Dec 01, 2017

This is a major software issue that not many people have happen. I have been working with Acrobat Pro since it came out and rarely had issues, but this may be InDesign having a major issue. The TURO shows the tags from the tags panel, it shouldn't be showing different tags-it should echo the Tags panel, and in this case it isn't doing that, it is showing different tags, which is where the problem lies.

While tags can go wrong, in this case it is a problem with the file causing the issue, and Adobe can't tell me why it is happening, they are investigating. Very few people on the net are having this issue, and there is no answer on it yet.

It is a mystery!

Report · Dec 07, 2018

I'm having the same issue with InDesign CC 2015 running under Windows 10. On top of that, my tags aren't appearing as <H1>, <P>, etc. Instead I have the InDesign style names: <Title_plain>, <Body>, etc. I have tried setting the individual style options, editing the Export All Tags box, and mapping styles to tags. I still see Span in TURO, and InDesign style names in the Tags panel.

FYI, not all screen-reading software follows the tags. Some, such as Read&Write Gold, follow the order in the Order panel. See https://accessible-digital-documents.com/blog/pdf-accessibility-reading-order/ .

Report · Dec 07, 2018

There's debate on where the problem is stemming from. I honestly don't think it's an InDesign issue but rather an Acrobat issue. Regardless, these "spans" are not tags at all. The Reading Order panel is reflecting what you see in the Order pane, not in the Tags pane. If you look in the Tags pane, you'll see no spans at all. And inkedguy, InDesign creates a Role Map in the background in the PDF document that maps the style name to the appropriate Tag. You can see this Role Map by clicking on the Option button at the top of the Tags pane and choosing Edit Role Map. If you have an updated version of Acrobat DC, you'll also be able to enable "Apply Role Mapping to Tags" from the same Option button at the top of the Tags pane and now you won't see the style names but instead will see the Tag names.

Report · Dec 07, 2018

Hey, Chad. Seems a little strange to be chatting with you while I'm in the middle of one of your Lynda.com courses. (Which is great, by the way.)

Thanks for clearing up my misunderstanding of what ID sends to Acrobat. I was expecting the mapping to cause the correct tags to show up in Acrobat's Tags panel. Now I understand what's really happening there. Doesn't explain why some things come over buried severaal tags down, but at least I can stop changing <Title_plain> to <H1>. But there are a few items that are indeed tagged <Span> as you can see in this screen shot. (The "y" items are what shows up in place of the bullets that are visible in the PDF.)

Report · Dec 08, 2018

Glad you’re enjoying the course 😉

Yes, I didn’t mean to confuse you on that one. The spans you initially mentioned are different. The ones in the Tags pane are generally created when you adjust text in InDesign creating a style override. It will then wrap that text in a span tag. Nothing to be concerned about though. It’s not a failure condition.