Indesign not tagging coirrectly to pdf

Report · Nov 08, 2019

Hi,

I updated the InDesign software this week. Now when I tag my document for export to interactive pdf for 508 compliance the bullets are not showing up as lists but a paragraph for each line. I have gone back to the working file and triple checked and everything is fine. Is this a glitch? And how do we fix this because I do not want to send everything out for 508 compliance?

Sandy L.

Report · Nov 08, 2019

Do you use Paaragraph Styles?

Edit the tags for HTML and PDF export in the style sheet, make maually UL

Report · Nov 08, 2019

Yes I always use paragraph styles. I checked another file I did before the update and the file was correct. Unfortunately I can not submit a pdf manually changed to the govt agency that posts our information. It must be done in the working file.

Report · Nov 11, 2019

Quote: "Edit the tags for HTML and PDF export in the style sheet, make maually UL"

This isn't the solution. HTML tags have nothing to do with PDF tags when the INDD document is exported to tagged accessible PDF.

So don't bother with setting the HTML export tags; that won't affect the PDF at all.

FYI:

In HTML, the tag structure is

<UL> (or <OL> for numbered listed)

<LI>

In PDF, the tag structure is more complex to create a more robust and informative experience for the end user

<L> (for both unordered bullet lists or numbered ordered lists)

<LI>

<Lbl> for the bullet/number character itself

<Body> for the body text of the bullet item

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

Report · Nov 09, 2019

Just to make sure: the paragraph style is a list style that generates the bullets? I guess they are but please check, this is the only way to auto generate li tags, a 'normal' style with typed bullets does not work.

Report · Nov 11, 2019

I have my paragraph styles set as I always do. Since I updated to CC 2020 it is just not recognizing the bullets as lists anymore when exporting out to pdf. This is quite frustrating. Anyone else having this issue?

Report · Jan 07, 2021

Yes, I am having the same issue. None of my lists, OL or UL, are exporting as L. They are exporting as P. I am using the automated list function in ID and have the style set to Automatic.

Report · Jan 07, 2021

Never mind! It's working!

Report · Nov 11, 2019

Hi Sandy L.,

We just did a sandbox test of bullets from InDesign 2020 (ver 15.0.0.155) and they exported correctly to accessible tagged PDF (per the PDF/UA-1 ISO 14289 standard).

Our firm does accessibility testing for software firms, government agencies, and others involved in Sec.508 and international accessibility laws. We tested the following:

the default bullet (Unicode 2022) in a paragraph style
a custom Unicode bullet (Unicode 25b6) in a paragraph style
the default bullet using the bullet icon in the Properties Panel (no style applied)
the default number settings in a paragraph style.

The results are shown in the screen captures below. All 4 of the above tests are correctly tagged.

Default bullets

InDesign's default bullet exported to tagged PDF.

Custom Unicode bullets

Custom Unicode bullets from InDesign.

Also note: in previous versions (2019 and earlier), the bullet was double-voiced when a custom bullet was used (it would have voiced as "bullet bullet cheese" in our example below). The double-voicing error has been corrected in 2020 as far as we can tell, and we will continue to monitor it.

I don't have any suggestions why this is happening for you; it appears you're doing everything right.

However, if your file was created in a previous version of InDesign, or if the placed Word file wasn't stripped or thorougly cleaned up, there is the possibility of code crud creeping into your INDD file and fowling up the conversion to accessible PDF. This is an extremely common problem, especially when the PDF Export Utility is dealing with the complex compound tag structures for lists, tables, and TOCs.

Suggestion:

To help diagnose where the problem lies, create a brand new simple test document with just bullets in it (we do recommend using a paragraph style for this rather than the bullet button in the Properties/Control panels). Don't copy/paste anything from anywhere so that you have plain, clean text content without any possible code crud.

Let us know if that new file exports correctly to tagged PDF.

--Bevi Chagnon

Designer and Accessibililty Technician | www.PubCom.com

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

Report · Nov 12, 2019

Update on the mis-tagged bullet lists.

The original poster (Sandral102360) had incorrectly set the Export Tagging to <P> rather than "Automatic."

Note: There are several situations where the Export Tagging must be set to Automatic rather than designate a specific tag like <P> or <Hx>:

Bulleted and numbered lists
Tables (the matrix structure, not the formatting of text inside the cells -- <Table> + <TR> + <TD> + <TH>)
Tables of Content

These parts of a PDF document have a complex compound tag structure rather than a single tag. For example, tagged lists require <L> + <LI> + <Lbl> + <Body> in order to be fully accessible and compliant with the PDF/UA-1 standard and accessibility laws.

New with 2020: There was a change in how lists are tagged with InDesign 2020.

In previous builds, if a bullet or numbered list was used, it was automatically tagged with the <L> combo of tags. But with the release of 2020, if the user sets another tag in the Export Tagging dialogue box, it overrides the <L> combo.

I don't know why this was changed in 2020: given that tagged PDF standards require the <L> combo of tags, I can't think of any time where I'd format list text to have bullets or numbers and NOT want it correctly tagged in the PDF. If you don't want the <L> tags, then don't format the text in InDesign as a list.

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

Report · Nov 12, 2019

Something similar in a way happened to me. Updated to 15.0 and all the figures in my 300 page doc were moved, I think inexplicably, to the end of the tag list in a new unnamed article (see sceen shots). And they all show in the checker as having no alt text even though properties indicates otherwise. So something looks screwy to me. Had to back up.

Report · Nov 12, 2019

There are 2 ways to control where a graphic gets anchored into the PDF Tag Tree reading order:

Anchor each graphic into a text frame or thread.
Sequence the graphic in the Articles Panel to get the correct PDF reading order.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/anchored-objects.html for details about anchoring graphics.

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

Report · Nov 12, 2019

Those are good things to know and things I do habitually. For some reason my PDF is exported incorrectly in spite of those things. Maybe some new button in indesign 15 that I have to check? Articles are in order, and figures are all anchored. They appear correctly after exported from 14.0.3, but not when from 15. A new unnamed and unwanted article is generated at the end of the tag list.

Report · Nov 12, 2019

Imagine using auto numbering a chaper heading that should have the H2 tag 😉

Report · Nov 13, 2019

Good case, Frans. Numbered headings shouldn't be tagged as lists.

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

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Indesign not tagging coirrectly to pdf

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