InDesign Accessibility PDF --> Floats <Tags> appearing end of Document in PDF

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 23, 2022
3 replies
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All,

Would like to have your thoughts on the issue to fix it in automated way.

We are XML-IN first workflow using InDesign Server for Accessibility PDF creation.

Added: style mapping, bookmark, alt-text, display title etc. everything fine now.

Expect, content reading.

Acrobat read loud using <Tags> structure for reading. Individual floats like table, figures <Tags> getting read after Full Text stream.

XML workflow, we cannot anchor the frames, XML will get moved. We can try anchoring after creating PDF, we can revert InDesign file.

If float are in verso page top then I cannot anchor either bottom or before page.

So the question is related to <Tags> for floating contents, how to handle it.

Shaji

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Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

... Acrobat read loud using <Tags> structure for reading. Individual floats like table, figures <Tags> getting read after Full Text stream.
By @Shaji25230243251z

Yes, that's the expected reading order, given what you described.

There are many different types of <Tags>, each with its own defined tag set, purpose, and rules of use. They are NOT the same and can't be used interchangably.

HTML tags for accessible webpages
PDF/UA tags for accessible PDFs
XML, and extensible customized tag set that has nothing to do with accessibility.

Acrobat Read Out Loud utility is an accessibilitly tool and it reads the content in the order of the PDF's architectural/construction order.

In Acrobat, the architectural order is shown in the Order Panel (item #2 below):
The PDF's architectural order is created from Layers stacking order in the InDesign layout. And the reading order is bottom-up in the Layers: that is, the bottom-most item will be read first, then the next, etc.
InDesign's Articles panel will do little to control the architectural reading order in the PDF, especially when you have a long full text stream you described. Because each item is processed in sequence, it will process the entire text stream first (even if it's spread across multiple pages), then the next item like a table or figure on page 1, then the next, etc.

Assuming that your full text stream is really a series of threaded text frames that holds the entire story, the only way to control the "floating" elements you describe is to NOT float them, and instead have them anchored into the text stream (aka, anchored into the story's threaded text frames).

Once anchored, they no longer are individual elements but instead become part of the main text thread.

Question: why are you concerned about having this read in Acrobat Read Out Loud?

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com

Legend

One more item:

Acrobat's Read Out Loud utility is about 20 years old...created before we had <Tags> of any kind in PDF files, and before the development of the PDF/UA standard and the PDF tag set for accessibility.

Therefore, Read Out Loud can't recognize tags, and wouldn't know what to do with them if it did come across one.

It's a very low-level, nearly useless, text-to-speech program and not a fully compliant screen reader. We don't recommend using it for any purpose, especially for accessibility testing.

We recommend either NVDA or JAWS, the 2 leading screen readers that are fully functional and recognize <Tags> — accessibility PDF/UA-1 tags, not necessarily XML tags.

See our blog about testing with screen readers at https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2019_04-05/checking-with-screenreaders.shtml

|    Bevi Chagnon   |  Designer, Trainer, & Technologist for Accessible Documents ||    PubCom |    Classes & Books for Accessible InDesign, PDFs & MS Office |

Loic.Aigon

Legend

Hi,

I can't see why you couldn't anchor tables or images but you sure have a specific context.

Once that is said, you can if needed control reading order with the Articles panel. So if the XML order couldn't be fitted for the reading purpose or if a script cannot rearrange tags, you may want to use Articles and set reading order based on articles. I mean manual setup or a script to automate Articles creation and arrangement.