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tonyr3704728
Known Participant
November 4, 2019
Question

Accessible pdfs

  • November 4, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2324 views

Hi there,

I have a large pdf document and I am making it accessible. I am having to change the reading order on some pages but when I draw a new box over the text, it is not picking up the text correctly for the reader.

 

So when acrobat reads the text out, the text is not correct. Does that make sense?

 

How can i edit the text in the tag?

I have been to the show/hide content panel and I can see the container an text and when I go to edit it it says, The container's tag must contain text and be less than 128 characters long. Please enter a valid tag or cancel.

 

I just need to be able to change the text on the tag slightly. Even if I delete and redo the tag, it is not picking up the correct text. When I type over the current text it won't save it.

Any ideas how I can do this please.

Thanks

Tony

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com
Legend
November 4, 2019

Need a few more details about what you're doing and why.

Quote: "...but when I draw a new box over the text, it is not picking up the text correctly for the reader. So when acrobat reads the text out, the text is not correct. Does that make sense?"

 

  • What do you mean, "draw a new box over the text"? Are you literally drawing a box in the Acrobat PDF file, or do you mean you're marqueing/selecting a section of text? Or something else?
  • It sounds like you're using Acrobat's built in Read Aloud utility. Don't! It's not a fully-featured screen reader (a.k.a. a worthless piece of code junk) and often misreads the content. Will give you false positive and false negatives when testing for accessibility. Instead use either of these 2 professional screen readers, JAWS (https://www.freedomscientific.com/products/software/jaws/ ) or NVDA (free at https://www.nvaccess.org/)

 

Quote: "How can i edit the text in the tag?"

Do you mean the actual content text in the PDF? If so, use Edit PDF tool panel.

Caution: when you edit content in a tagged PDF, the tags can become disrupted. Generally it's best to return tot he source document, make the editorial changes in the source file, and re-export it to PDF.

 

Quote: "I have been to the show/hide content panel and I can see the container an text and when I go to edit it it says, The container's tag must contain text and be less than 128 characters long. Please enter a valid tag or cancel."

 

You can't edit the content text there. See above.

 

Quote: "I just need to be able to change the text on the tag slightly. Even if I delete and redo the tag, it is not picking up the correct text. When I type over the current text it won't save it."

 

Not sure what you mean by "change the text on the tag." That's not how tags work. They are merely labels on portions of text.

If you mean you want to change the tag (literally, tag the text with a different tag), then select the tag in the Tag Tree, right-click, Properties, and select one of the tags from the drop-down menu at the top. You cannot make up your own tag names, and this drop-down menu lists the tags allowed by the PDF standard.

 

Here are some places where you can learn more ab out working with tagged PDFs:

 

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |
T
tonyr3704728Author
Known Participant
November 4, 2019

Hi Bevi, tahnks for getting back to me. I will try and explain a bit better what I am trying to do.

I have a large pdf that I am making accessible. I am having to go through each page of the document and delete the reading order and adding a new order. When I 'draw the box' over the text with the reading order tool, Acrobat doesn't alway read the text correctly. I am attaching an example image to try and show you what I mean. In my example, I have added a drwan a rectangle around the contents section of the page and it will be read second on the page as indicated by the '2'. But as you can see in the reading order list on the left hand side, the second tag says CLetter tonto etc etc...

It is not reading the word 'Contents"

What I was hoping to do was to edit the text on the tag in the 'order list on the left. DO you know what I mean?. Is that Possible?

I am only using the acrobat reader to check what is happening as I make the reading order. 

Is this the best make to do this? EG do the reading order from acrobat? 

Thanks

Tony

Bevi Chagnon @ PubCom
Bevi Chagnon @ PubCom
Participating Frequently
November 5, 2019

Hi Tony,

Thanks for providing that detail.

I think you're attempting to remediate this PDF the wrong way. Have you had any training in doing this, that is controlling the tags and reading order to make a compliant, accessible PDF?

 

First, you need to understand the relationship between the tag tree and Order panel. Only the tag tree is required to meet PDF/UA-1 compliance, although in my firm's consulting and classes, we recommend that the Order panel also have a good logical reading order.

 

Second, what's wrong with the original tags and reading order that you are compelled to delete it and retag it by hand, page by page? If that original PDF's tag and structure are so bad, why not use Acrobat's Autotag utility?

 

Third, the TOC requires the correct TOC/TOCI tags, nesting, with nested accessible hyperlinks. You can't just marque-select it with the Order panel tool and tag it because that won't produce the correct tags.

 

Quote: What I was hoping to do was to edit the text on the tag in the 'order list on the left. DO you know what I mean?. Is that Possible?

You can change the tag's name in either the Order panel or Tags panel, but it has to be the correct tag name as I described in the earlier reply. You can also drag items up/down in the Order or Tags panels in order to change the reading order.

 

But otherwise I don't understand what you mean by editing the text on the tag.

 

This forum is staffed by us ACPs and MVPs. We're volunteer experts from around the world, invited to help others in the industry. But it isn't a free classroom and I'm getting the sense that your training in tagged, accessible PDF is very limited.

 

Recommendation: same as before. View Adobe's free online tutorials on making accessible PDFs. https://adobe.lookbookhq.com/acrobataccessibility  You will learn the basic steps that will help get your PDF remediated and working knowledge of accessibility.

 

Quote: I am only using the acrobat reader to check what is happening as I make the reading order.

Is this the best make to do this? EG do the reading order from acrobat?

 

No, you can't do these tasks in the free Acrobat Reader. Reader does just as its name implies: it allows you to read PDFs, but not edit or make them accessible. Those tasks must be done with Adobe Acrobat Pro, preferably the latest version so that you have the best tools for this work.

T
tonyr3704728Author
Known Participant
November 4, 2019

Does anyone have any ideas on how do do this?

 

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