Inspiring

Question

Please share your PDF/UA-compliance experiences

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
September 11, 2013
12 replies
28953 views

I encourage others to share your experiences in remediating PDFs for ISO 14289 (PDF/UA) compliance. Let’s learn from each other’s experiences.

I am working with documents that previously passed the Acrobat checker and PAC 1.3 along with manual checks for WCAG 2.0 compliance – so, the documents were as accessible as I knew how to make them. Below are the errors that I am seeing quite a bit from the new PAC2 PDF/UA-compliance checker. The “fix” is not necessarily the best, just what I have found that seems to work. I am using Acrobat Pro XI.

error: Font not embedded

fix: Tools > Print Production > Preflight > PDF fixups > Embed fonts

comment: This does not always work as some font licenses do not allow embedding. If you encounter non-embeddable fonts hopefully you have the source document and can use a different font.

error: Tagged content present inside an Artifact

fix: Open the Content pane. Open Artifact containers to find any content containers hiding inside. Drag the content containers to their proper place outside the Artifact container.

error: Alternative description missing for an annotation

fix: Add alt text to link tags.

comment: This seems an odd error. Some links benefit from alt text but others are perfectly clear without it. Seems like this should be a judgment call, but the Matterhorn Protocol insists on links having alt text.

error: Figure element on a single page with no bounding box.

fix: This error goes away if I tag the figure as an artifact, which makes sense. But if I then retag it as a figure and add back in the alt text, the error stays away.

comment: Seems odd. Even the Matterhorn Protocol PDF (http://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/MatterhornProtocol_1-0.pdf) fails PAC2 on this point! This could be a rough spot in the PAC2 beta, not a real error, but is easy enough to “fix”.

error: DisplayDocTitle key is not set to true

fix: File > Properties > Initial View tab > In the Show drop down box, select “Document Title”

error: PDF/UA identifier missing

fix: Create an xmp file that includes the required snippet of metadata (example: http://bygosh.com/files/pdfuaid.xmp). Then: File > Properties > Description tab > Additional Metadata... > Advanced > Append
comment: This should be the final remediation step, after the document is otherwise PDF/UA-compliant. To apply the PDF/UA ID to a document that is not compliant would be fibbing.

Standards and accessibility

H

happy_Breeze9321

Participant

Hi I was wondering if you know a fix for this Preflight error. I have three Figures in my PDF and all have ALT text added to the tags. I also have checked the Containers tab to see if for some reason there were empty/extra Figure containers for some reason and found nothing, but I'm still geeting this error. If you have come across this error and help to resolve it would be apprciated. Thanks.

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi there

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the late reply.

I hope you have fixed the issue by now. If not, please check the correct answer marked in the similar discussion https://adobe.ly/3FAB3Jq and see if that works.

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garn1E5678

Participating Frequently

A few days ago, ADOBE ACROBAT READER updated itself to 2023.006.20320 and the scroll bar no longer functions properly. This is driving me nuts because it means I can no longer use the scroll bar — especially this is driving me crazy for long documents. When you open up a document, even if it has 1000 pages, the scroll bar makes it look as though it only has one page. This bug is driving me nuts.

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi there

Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.

Following the latest macOS guidelines, we have completely overhauled the Acrobat scrolling framework for Mac as part of our September '23 release. This fundamental transition from NSView to NSScrollView significantly impacts the behaviour of the Mac user interface. It introduces a modern scrolling experience that is responsive during active use and eliminates the need for excessive space.

For more info. please check the help article https://adobe.ly/42Amb4K...

~Amal

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peted44177588

Participant

Screen shot below of the Standards Pane with the status of "verification succeeded"

Does the group agree that this verification status is a built-in Q.A. for the compliance of the document?

I recommend all pdf testers to provide this verification to ensure a file meets WCAG2.0/PDF/UA

Can members of this forum and other PDF remediation specialists clarify the steps to ensure files are verified.

I do not find any guidelines on this Standards Pane with Adobe, or http://www.aaim.org, or PDF Association | The future of PDF or http://taggedpdf.com. The reason I ask is, I am not sure if there is a consistent and easy method to execute this verification step.

Thank you for your thoughts, tips, tricks, and wisdom.

Pete

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peted44177588

Participant

Accessibility Conformance Validation Process

From Word Doc save as PDF selecting (PDF/A) (Acrobat will verify these original standards)

Verify Standards in Standards Pane (Upon PDF conversion, Acrobat DC will verify inherent standards)

File dynamically loads with PDF/A-1A standard with a link to verify Conformance as shown above,

as well as a second link to "open Preflight" for added standards additions such as PDF/UA

Standards PDF/A-1A and PDF/UA Verified

As shown above after clicking the verification link, each standard is immediately checked and updates the status with "verification succeeded". This is a built-in way to perform Q.A. for compliance of selected standards such as PDF/UA.

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

For those using Acrobat Pro DC, there is an easier way to set the PDF/UA ID...

Tools > Print Production > Preflight

In the Preflight dialog, on the Profiles tab, click the Single Fixup wrench icon (the rightmost of the three icons next to the “Show all” button). Expand “Document info and Metadata” and select “Set PDF/UA-1 entry”. Click the “Fix” button. When prompted, save to a new file name.

For those using an earlier version of Acrobat Pro, the xmp file with the required snippet of metadata is now at http://taggedpdf.com/xmp/pdfUA-ID.xmp

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Bob Dry

Participant

Is there a way to batch process either of the methods for adding the PDF/UA compliant metadata?

Either using the preflight option available in Acrobat Pro DC or appending the data through the Properties window in earlier versions of Acrobat?

Thanks for your help,

Bob

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

I gathered all tips and tricks from the thread, along with others, and consolidated them at TaggedPDF.com, on the 508 PDF Help Center page, and also in video format on the Tagged PDF channel on YouTube. My hope is this will be of benefit in meeting the new PDF accessibility requirements of the 508 Refresh, which aligns with PDF/UA.

M

Mike Custode

Participant

I gathered all tips and tricks from the thread, along with others, and consolidated them at TaggedPDF.com, on the 508 PDF Help Center page, and also in video format on the Tagged PDF channel on YouTube. My hope is this will be of benefit in meeting the new PDF accessibility requirements of the 508 Refresh, which aligns with PDF/UA.

Unbelievably helpful! Thanks for pulling all that together. Really appreciated.

Mike

Wendy_H

Participant

Thanks for starting this discussion “a ‘C’ student” and thanks to all the contributors. I’m happy that I have been able to solve a few mysteries presented to me by PAC 2.0!

I’m trying to work through the following error: “Alternative description missing for an annotation”. This error is flagged on each item in my table of contents. Note: the authoring program is InDesign CS6.

Can you provide some more detail regarding fixing link annotations that have been generated through a table of contents?

I have referred to post #9 but I have no experience editing tags and my attempts haven’t worked so far. Another reason I’m inquiring about this is when I try to investigate the “ClimbingtheMatterhorn” pdf, it doesn’t show a table of contents, only regular hyperlinks. Also, I tried to investigate another document (pertaining to the Matterhorn Protocol) that did have table of contents but I’m unable to fully understand what I’m seeing when I drill down into the tag element.

Perhaps someone has solved this particular problem or can point me in the right direction in terms of learning about editing tags?

Also, in Post #9, what exactly should be entered for the “Value” (“Value: link text goes here”)? Would it be different for a bookmark link?

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

Hi Wendy,

The requirement that all links include alternate text in the Contents key is frustrating ...

To the best of my knowledge, no current AT makes use of the Contents key alt text
No current tool makes it easy to create and configure the Contents key. To do so manually with a long set of links such as a table of contents is time consuming.
In a well-written document, link text is often quite clear in context, and alt text provides no benefit in terms of accessibility. This is almost certainly the case with a table of contents.

So, you have to make a choice. You can ...

Ignore this particular PDF/UA criterion and somehow live with the resulting scolding from PAC2.
Apply regular alt text to the links. This makes PAC2 happy but PAC 1.3 unhappy.
Patiently wait for the opportunity to shell out big bucks for a new tool that automates setting the link Contents key, like the "coming soon" PDF Global Access (new version of CommonLook with a new name) from NetCentric.
Bite the bullet and set the Contents key for each link tag manually. It is a bit intimidating at first to delve into the innards of the tag structure and make changes, but you will quickly gain experience and comfort level. This is the best solution if you, like me, obsess with making both PAC2 and PAC 1.3 say "Pass". Just be sure, as always when working with Acrobat, to save early and often to a new file name, in case something goes horribly wrong.

If you choose the last bullet, the PDF/UA Reference Suite includes example TOCs. As to what should be entered for "Value", for external links I typically use the title of the target page. For TOC entries, following the examples in the PDF Reference Suite, the Contents key value mirrors the text of the link, for example "Chapter 1: Introduction".

Hope this helps.

a 'C' student

raeben3

Inspiring

Callas PDF Pilot sets the Creates a Content entry for Link annotations, and does so globally through the document. This allows you to ignore the Table of Contents and other hyperlinks that do not really need alternative text to be clearly understood and focus your attention on those links that do need alternative text. This passes PAC 2.0's automated checker. It's a standalone program, designed mostly for prepress, but PDF Pilot also has a number of helpful accessibility features, hopefully they will add even more going forward.

I deal with a lot of Word to PDF files and lately have been getting an embedded font error on the spaces in labels in bulleted lists. No other software I've tried fixes this consistently by replacing unembeddable fonts with similar fonts. It also will convert all untagged items to artifacts, which has been helpful with table documents from Word.

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gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

PAC2 has highlighted an error in tagged pdfs created from LibreOffice4; the requirement for alt text for annotations associated with the Table of Contents.

The interactive TOC is generated by LibreOffice4 and cannot be edited within that programme. The tag editor in Acrobat Pro X shows a logical structure hierarchy for each entry:

<TOC>

<TOCI>

<Contents 1>(the style name for level 1 TOC entry)

<Link>

Content name (eg Introduction)

<link>

<Link>

page no (eg 1)

<link>

Acrobat's tag editor allows alt text to be entered for any of these elements, but will only save alt text for the style name (<Contents 1> in the structure above). It will not save alt text for the TOC, TOCI or link tags.

Looking at various forums, there seems to be dispute/ambiguity about whether alt text for annotations is specified in the pdf 1.7 standard. But PAC2 records the annotation error on every entry in the Table of Contents even when the style name has alt text.

Does anyone know how this error can be eliminated?

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

Hi gareth_glynn,

PAC2 is enforcing Matterhorn Protocol criterion 28-012, which requires every a link annotation to include an alternate description in the Contents Key. The solution is to create a Contents Key containing alt text for each link tag (See post #9 above. The Matterhorn Protocol PDF has good examples - that is, TOC entries with alt text in each link Contents Key).

Or you may choose to live with this "error". This is an example of a compliance criterion that is well ahead of available tools and AT. No current AT makes use of the Contents Key. No current accessibility remediation tool makes it easy to create and configure the Contents key - it can be done with Acrobat, but is tedious for a long TOC. If you are like me - that is, you want to make sure your PDFs are accessible for the AT of tomorrow as well as today, and a bit obsessed with making PAC2 say "Pass" - go for it. But with the understanding that it is a bit of a chore.

a 'C' student

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gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

Belatedly, just to say thanks for your super helpful advice on pdfUA issues, and the TOC link alt text conundrum in particular.

Like many others I strive to achieve the ideal of PAC2 conformance. But as I'm creating pdfs for a living, mainly for resource starved NGOs, I need to strike a balance between time put in and tangible results.

Your expertise and perspective has helped me to stay sane and deliver documents that I'm confident achieve high standards of accessibility … so thank you again.

G

gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

Because Word for Mac has no tagged pdf export I've been trying to create UA compliant pdfs from documents created in LibreOffice 4 (MacOS). Using LibreOffice's 'tagged pdf' export option produces pdfs that need further fixing in Acrobat Pro, specifically:

checking structure tags which sometimes render text as 'span' rather than H1, H2 etc
removing artifacts that often follow paragraph breaks or bullet lists
specifying tab order to follow document structure, eg for table of contents and notes
specifying alt descriptions for annotations: links from ToC to content and links for footnote markers to the footnote entry
'Role mapping for standard structure types' like div, H1 etc is circular; the roles are remapped to themselves so have to be deleted In Acrobat's role map editor.

One issue highlighted by PAC2 which I've been unable to fix is:

• 'missing ID in Note structure elements': Acrobat correctly identifies the Note elements but the ID field is empty. I can't find the format in ID is specified; it's not '1' not '#1' etc

I would greatly appreciate any insights others can offer into the format for specifying tag ID

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

A couple of members of the PDF/UA development team - Duff Johnson and Ferass Elrayes, acknowledged on the Linkedin forum "About PDF/UA", that the ID requirement for Note tags was a mistake. As the latter put it:

"Duff is right. This is not used for anything now. While the standard was being developed, we wanted to add an attribute on the Reference tag called "Target" and that attribute would hold the unique ID of the Note tag in order to enable "Structural Navigation" (a feature that is missing from ISO32000-1 but introduced in ISO32000-2 in a different way). We did not end up adding the Target attribute and therefore, the ID for the Note tag is useless."

This requirement will likely be removed in the next version of ISO 14289 (PDF/UA). In the meantime, a workaround to get PAC2 to "pass" is to manually add a unique id to the "ID" entry in each Note tag's properties (right click the Note tag, select Properties, you will find the ID field on the Tag tab). It really does not matter what you enter - as long as it is unique.

Hope this helps.

a 'C' student

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gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

Thanks, that's very helpful. I'll come up with a set of IDs.

best regards

Gareth

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gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

I have a tagged pdf created with InDesign CS6 then further tweaked in Acrobat ProX. Having ironed out all conformance issues hghlighted by PAC2, I saved an xmp file by clicking the top right hand corner arrow in the Properties Additional Metadata window. Then I appeneded this to my pdf as expained in adobe's guide (Apple click to select xmp file) and saved the pdf. The file size shows as being 7kb more so something's definitely been appended.

But PAC2 says the pdf/ua identifier is missing. Has anyone else had this experience? If so, is there a fix?

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

Hi garath_glynn,

You will need to append an XMP file that includes the PDF/UA identifier. In an earlier post Al2O3 provided this example, which works great in my experience: http://www.robinschwab.ch/pdfUA.xmp

I am far from an XMP expert, but it sounds like you may have cluttered your file's metadata with duplicate information if you saved the metadata to XMP then appended it to the same file. I would revert back to the pre-appended version of your PDF if you have it, then append A1203's XMP.

Hope this helps.

a 'C' student

G

gareth_glynn

Participating Frequently

Many thanks for this response. I know almost nothing about XMP … and you may well be right about cluttering the metadata.

In the example that Al2O3 provided there doesn't look to be any specific reference or data for a particular pdf. So if I create and fix up a new tagged pdf can this file be appended directly?

best regards

Gareth

a_C_student11733502Author

Inspiring

This has been bugging me for several months – I could not get links to pass both PAC 1.3 (WCAG 2.0) and PAC 2 (PDF/UA). PAC 2 insists that links must have alt text, PAC 1.3 insists they must not. This month the PDF Association, PDF/UA Competence Center published the excellent paper “Climbing the Matterhorn: An introduction to the definitive algorithm for PDF/UA conformance” (http://www.pdfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ImplementingPDFUA-ClimbingtheMatterhorn.pdf). Experimenting with the file, I noticed it has links that pass both PACs. By carefully examining the link tag properties, I was able to spot the trick. Rather than using the Alternate Text or Actual Text fields, alt text was applied directly to the Contents key of the tag. Trying it out on other files, I leave the link tag Alternate Text and Actual Text fields blank and click the “Edit Tag …” button, then drill down through “Tag Element”, “/K [Array]”, “[0] <<Dictionary>>”, and “/Obj <<Dictionary>>”, then click “New Item” and add:

Key: Contents

Value: link text goes here

Value Type: String

This makes both PACs happy. It takes a bit of work so I am not sure how often it will be worth the effort in practice, but I like knowing that it can be done. The file linked above has example link tags, and the paper is well worth reading on its many other merits.

a 'C' student

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