accessibility checkers say PDF is corrupted

[daves12101148]

I have a type of document where I sometimes have a single customer and sometimes have multiple customers together in one PDF. The multiple version is accepted by PAC3 and CommonLook. However, the single version is not. PAC3 says:

The PDF document is corrupted and unfortunately can't be read by PAC.

(name object expected (495604))

CommonLook says:

External component has thrown an exception

and then Acrobat crashes. Given that documentation for these programs is limited or nonexistent, I'm at a loss as to how to proceed. Any suggestions?

The documents are produced by OpenText Exstream. The multiple version is accepted by Acrobat Pro's accessibility checker.

[yn]

I'm not sure what you mean by having a document with single or multiple customers. Are you  consolidating several PDFs into one or something?

You mention OpenText Exstream. So then you're creating your document there and exporting to PDF?

Have other PDF exports worked?

Have you made any edits to the PDF since it was exported?

Was there ever a stage that the PDF did NOT return an error? Or is this straight from OpenText Exstream and into PAC3? If you've not edited it and have just exported then immediately tested the file with PAC3, then it may be a bug the OpenText. I've never used it so I wouldn't even know where to begin troubleshooting if that's the case.

Maybe comb through your single- and multi-client versions to compare differences. Maybe there is something in your working file that is creating the issue on export.

Does this application have a support forum?

[daves12101148]

Yes, I'm consolidating several PDFs into one.

Exstream outputs in PDF format.

Other PDFs from Exstream for other document types have worked.

I don't make any edits to the PDF between creating it in Exstream and checking it with a checker.

There was a stage when the particular PDF that causes the error worked -- the only things I've added to the document since then are more accessibility features.

If I look in Acrobat in the Content navigation pane, I see that in the single document there's a bunch of Containers within each Page. In the multiple document there's another layer -- within each Page, there's a Form XObject and within that there are all the Containers. The Containers are all the same, in other words everything else is the same except that one thing.

I will also post in the OpenText forum. I've been reading a bunch of posts on this one and I know people here have done a lot with accessibility so I was hoping someone had knowledge of this issue.

[daves12101148 · Accepted solution]

In case anyone comes across this with the same or similar problem... The problem turned out to be my use of a left bracket "(" as alternate text. Before I fully understood how everything worked I had put that in several places because I saw that Acrobat's read out loud wouldn't read a bracket. When I removed these brackets -- and changed it from alternate text to "do not read" the problem went away.

The thing that can be confusing, and that isn't mentioned in the documentation, is that if you have a paragraph in a table cell there are accessibility options on the text paragraph properties AND on the cell properties. In this case the ones on the cell properties are the ones that are relevant.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

daves12101148  wrote

...because I saw that Acrobat's read out loud wouldn't read a bracket.

Acrobat's Read Out Loud can't read a LOT of things!

It's useless as a screen reader and there are movements to have Adobe remove it entirely.

Read Out Loud is NOT a screen reader. Don't use it for testing accessibility.

Don't waste your time with it. It will give you false positives and false negatives like the problem in this thread.

If you want a free "real" screen reader to test, install  NVDA at https://www.nvaccess.org/about-nvda/​

[raeben3]

I seriously doubt alternative text would have this effect. Are you sure you didn't change anything else? I would be more inclined to look at the FormXObject.  They have given me a lot of issues in the past.

[daves12101148]

Just to be clear, it's not any alternate text that causes the problem -- it's specifically alternate text that's a left bracket. And it was OpenText that stated that this was the problem.