Designing a PDF for screen readers, in InDesign. Not Acrobat.

[Jake31240521nz7q]

I'm really frustrated. I've found so much conflicting information online, and nothing I do in InDesign produces an accessible PDF after exporting.

I have tried setting the reading order via the Articles panel. I opened the PDF in Adobe Acrobat and the reading order was utterly wrong. I was then told to use the Structure panel and order content that way whilst tagging all objects, but the exported PDF looks exactly the same in Acrobat, with all objects scrambled in the reading order.

Please provide some simple, step-by-step instructions on how to set up the reading order in InDesign so that, when I open it in Acrobat, the reading order will actually make sense. What approach has produced screen reader-accessible PDFs in your work? What has provably worked for you?

I am working with a document that has body copy, images, image captions, headings, sub-headings, etc.

[Rene Andritsch]

@Jake31240521nz7q The articles panel is a good start. Remember that only what is in the article panel makes it to the tagged PDF. Do not rely on the Reading order that you can check in Acrobat because that is not the reading order that the screen reader will adhere to. Use a tool like PDFgoHTML to check your exported PDF in Acrobat.

So the most important steps in order:

1. Open the articles Panel
2. In the Panel Flyout menu check “Use for tagging order in tagged PDF”
3. Add your objects in the order you want them to be read to the articles panel.

Maybe start with a small selection and check in Acrobat with PDFgoHTML (a free Plugin for Acrobat from Callas). It will look something like this (depending of course which elements and tags you used) …

There is a lot more to this process than I can describe here. But that should give you a good start for the correct reading order.

[Jake31240521nz7q]

Thank you for recommending PDFgoHTML, I'd never heard of it before. I really appreciate the help.

I'm even more confused now, to be honest. This advice completely goes against the other info I've found, authored by people who identify themselves as experts in Adobe programs. The good news though, is that I've already set up the Articles panel.... so, if you're correct, I should be golden.

To clarify then, is it okay if the reading order displayed in Adobe Acrobat doesn't make sense for a screen reader?

[Rene Andritsch]

To further illustrate this look at my screenshot. I have three separate text frames randomly placed on the page. In the Article Panel I define the tag reading order for the screen reader which you can check in the exported PDF with PDFgoHTML (on the left).

The reading order in the PDF is completely different and depends on the layer order of the objects in InDesign – from the bottom up – I know this sounds weird. As you can also see in the Reading Order in Acrobat.

That the reading order in Acrobat has influence on real screen readers is not correct. The tag reading order is the important thing and that is defined in the Articles Panel – as long as you have the option “Use for tagging order in tagged PDF” turned ON.

[Rene Andritsch]

The ultimate test would be to have your document read by a screen reader. There is a free screen reader called NVDA. It only runs on Windows but you could run it on a Mac with a virtual machine.

[Willi Adelberger]

Let me guess: You use many text frames on each page. Why?

[Jake31240521nz7q]

Thanks for letting me know that multiple needless text frames can be an issue. That's not the issue here, but I appreciate the info.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

If this is something you do often, you should check out this book:

https://www.pubcom.com/books/bevi_508-indesign/508indesign.shtml

The author, Bevi Chagnon, posts quite a bit on the InDesign and Acrobat forums. 

You can scan her search history here for possible answers:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1835976