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InDesign CC 2017 and Reading Order

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
January 16, 2019
5 replies
7808 views

I've read several Adobe forum discussions about the problem with InDesign CC 2017 and the reading order that results in Acrobat DC. I have attempted to follow the instructions in those discussions, and I'm still having the problem. In Adobe InDesign CC 2017, I've organized the Articles panel, Tags panel, Structure panel, and Layers panel. None of these have fixed the reading order. Note that previous discussions about this issue mention that the Layers panel must be organized in the reverse order that you want the items read (bottom layers read first, top layers read last). I was unable to do this because it rearranged items on top of ones that I need to be visible. One discussion advised tagging all images as artifacts to get around this problem. I cannot do that, some images are artifacts, but others are not, and I would like a screen reader to read their alt tags.

I thought that laying out each individual article in my 40-page magazine as a single text thread with frame breaks would help, but this method did not affect the reading order at all.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Is there a way to organize the Layers panel in reverse without rearranging the items in layout? Any help is much appreciated!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Frans v.d. Geest

Realize that in Accessible PDF we have a Tag order and also a Reading order, not the same indeed. The Article panel only sets the Tag order! The reading order is set by the Layer order! And what is on top is latest and at the bottom of the Layers is the first (like reading from bottom to top).

Professional software like Jaws take the Tag order to read aloud luckely enough ;-)

However, the Reflow view in Acrobat uses the... Reading order set by Layers order in InDesign (yeah, I know...)

You can drag the order in Acrobat in the Order pane there, but you can end up with text or items getting obscured by other items like images or coloured frames etc. You can again fix that in the Page order items.

A bit confusing it sure is at first... ;-)

reish

Participant

Could we not look at updating this?

alexanderkaplan

Participating Frequently

see my response from earlier today—I found a fairly simple solution, given how inconvenient this is.

reish

Participant

Thanks for your prompt response. noted about object ordering!..

hammer0909

Community Expert

Rarely can you get perfect results right out of InDesign. Although you have complete control of the tag order for the most part, the Flow Order (Reading Order) is difficult because it relies on adjusting the stacking order of objects in InDesign to achieve the desired result. I try to get about 85% complete straight out of InDesign and then the remaining 15% I have to do in Acrobat (those are rough numbers by the way). Using the Order panel in Acrobat, you can fine tune the order to achieve correct Flow Order for your file.

Y

yn68_2

Inspiring

^ See? I'm learning something every 3 minutes here

Frans v.d. Geest

Correct answer

Community Expert

Realize that in Accessible PDF we have a Tag order and also a Reading order, not the same indeed. The Article panel only sets the Tag order! The reading order is set by the Layer order! And what is on top is latest and at the bottom of the Layers is the first (like reading from bottom to top).

Professional software like Jaws take the Tag order to read aloud luckely enough ;-)

However, the Reflow view in Acrobat uses the... Reading order set by Layers order in InDesign (yeah, I know...)

You can drag the order in Acrobat in the Order pane there, but you can end up with text or items getting obscured by other items like images or coloured frames etc. You can again fix that in the Page order items.

A bit confusing it sure is at first... ;-)

B

bpeat

Inspiring

THANK YOU. This needs to be plastered somewhere in big letters. I nearly gave up on trying to set the order in Indesign and would have to carefully fix it in Acrobat. Now at least I know how to save myself from having to deal with the wonky read order panel in Acrobat.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

Have you ticked on the "Tagged PDF" optoin in the PDF export options?

jessicam61308623Author

Participating Frequently

Yes.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I'm not entirely sure - but as suggested before - you may need to do this in acrobat?

Reading Order tool for PDFs (Adobe Acrobat Pro)

You may need to tag your items in InDesign

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/indesign/using/structuring-pdfs.html

Y

yn68_2

Inspiring

Have you looked at the Acrobat side of things?

In my experience, I'm structuring layers as you describe (trying to at least), manually selecting text then assigning appropriate tags (H1, H2, etc.) with the Tags Panel, editing paragraph styles to associate the Export Tagging tab for each style to the appropriate HTML tag and class, then even after all that setup, I use the Accessibility tools in Acrobat Pro to cleanup more. That becomes a whole other beast to deal with though.

Assuming you've set things up as thoroughly as you can in InDesign, you can use Acrobat Pro tools to manually sort read order (1, 2, 3, etc., for as many elements are on a page). You can also check the Tags Panel to check order. Those are some keywords to throw at YouTube. You might discover more down those paths.

Something that might be a factor is the tab order settings on the PDF export. After you've exported to PDF and opened in Acrobat, open your Page Thumbnails panel. Select ALL thumbnails then right-click for a context menu. Here, select Page Properties. In this new pop-up window choose "use Document Structure" and click OK. That will sort of set read order to follow the document's structure (assuming the document is structured correctly!). I'd suggest saving unique PDFs if you're going to start experimenting with the Tags Panel and Accessibility tools as some edits cannot be undone. That way, if you're saving at major landmark changes, you can at least go to the previous save should things break on you.

How are you using the PDF? I mean, with what screen reader? Is this for accessibility compliance? When you say it doesn't fix the read order, do you see a pattern in what it IS doing relative to how you have things set up?

Do you have links to any of the other discussions you've been following? That might help for more context.

jessicam61308623Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for all the information. I have explored the Acrobat side of things. I just checked the document structure option in Acrobat, and it was actually already selected. I also checked the Tag order in Acrobat, and it's perfect. Yet when I view the reading order, it's all wrong.

I'm not sure which screen reader people will be using; I'm trying to make the PDF as 508 compliant as possible. Before I defined all the "panels" in InDesign (Articles, Tags, Structure, etc.), Acrobat was determining the reading order in the exact same incorrect way. It's as if nothing I do in InDesign is affecting how Acrobat determines the reading order.

Interestingly, when I look at the Articles panel in Acrobat (not InDesign), there is nothing, it's empty.

The structure looks correct in Acrobat.

And, yes, I'm selecting "Tagged PDF" on the PDF export options. And I've selected "Use Articles to determine reading order."

Let me track down the other discussions and I will post the links.

Y

yn68_2

Inspiring

Are you looking at the read order visually, or are you testing with a true text-to-speech reader like JAWS or NVDA? NVDA is free btw!

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