surprise with tagged .pdf

[FieryPantone]

Unprecedented request from product manager: "Can you make a .pdf from this document that's suitable for automatic reading out loud?" As any Victorian novelist would say, it was the work of a moment … Save as .pdf, and activate the Tagged .pdf option

This immediately resolved one problem someone else (with inferior software, naming no names) had run in to; Acrobat no longer reads out the header and footer. But, it introduced a new one that nearly had me falling off my chair … here's what I heard when we hit the ToC.

"Contents. Introduction. dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot …"

Yes, Acrobat was conscientiously reading out the leader dots. I've adjusted the ToC layout as the quickest solution, but now have a document that doesn't look the same as all the others in the set. Does anyone have any tweak for getting Acrobat to skip the dots when reading out loud?

Thanks in advance!

[Winfried Reng]

Hi,

I did not test it, but maybe only the text with a certain language is read out loud?

Just apply no language to the TOC paragraphs or only the tab with the leader dots on the reference page.

As far as I know in Acrobat you cannot set the language for certain paragraphs.

Another option would be to replace the leader dots with a graphic. But probably Acrobat would read that there is a graphic with no important content ...

Best regards

Winfried

[Stefan Gentz]

I have just tried this (Tagged PDF from FM 2017 TOC file with TOC pgs included for tagging and dots (...) as leaders) and it Acrobat reads it fine. I have tested it with Acrobat Pro DC (2018.011.20038). Which version of Acrobat are you using?

[FieryPantone]

@Winfried: interesting idea! I'll try it.

@Stefan: Ah, there you have the advantage on me: Acrobat X 10.1.4 and FM 12 12.0.4.445 … keeping the only Adobe licence up to date is not a corporate priority. (btw, I would have come up to say hullo in Amsterdam, but other people already had things to discuss with you)

I've had to open questions on the Acrobat forum too, about unhelpful messages and mismatched helps from/in Acrobat; so it would be comfortable to set as much as possible when creating the .pdf from FM.