PAC 3 also includes a screen-reader emulator as an alternative or addition to JAWS or NVDA. ... View more

You would probably have better luck asking in the General Troubleshooting forum for Reader. This is the Accessibility and Standards forum for Acrobat. Topics for discussion here generally involve optimizing PDFs for people who use assistive technology such as screen readers.  ... View more

Hi Michael, was the document protected from opening, or from editing. My understanding is that the first case (opening) uses real encryption and a hacker would have to be very determined, very lucky, or have somehow obtained the password. The second case (editing) is very easy to defeat - google will easily find free Internet services that do the trick.  ... View more

Well, that's interesting. I have not seen that specific issue before. Thing is though - autotagging almost never works well. I have pretty much given up on it. In my experience "tags in the Tags panel may appear reasonably correct" is rare, and even so reasonably correct is not good enough. Autotagging requires so much clean-up and corrections it is almost always easier to hand-tag from the start - if your goal is an actually accessible document, that is conforming to ISO 14289 and WCAG 2.0. ... View more

"As I understand it all (and I'm likely wrong, I'm sure), this tool breaks more than it fixes." You are not wrong, in fact you are exactly right. Forget about ever using the Order Pane, it is worse than useless. I have no idea why Adobe persists on maintaining it. Stick to the Tags Pane to set the reading order. I also like to put the Contents Pane in the right order but that is more for tidiness than accessibility. Regarding Read Out Loud vs. NVDA or JAWS, please consider a screen reader emulator as an alternative. An excellent one is built into the free PAC3 from Access for All. PAC3 also provides more thorough accessibility testing than Acrobat Pro.   ... View more

Hi Noel, thank you for your very kind words regarding my site taggedpdf.com. You made my day. ... View more

Have you tried using metadata keywords? File -> Properties -> Description tab ... View more

Simple, regular, tables are much easier for AT to read. So, ideally, the 'apples' row should be three rows, each reading 'apples'. This should be done in the source document. If it can't be done in the source document, it could still be done in the PDF tag structure using a bit of creative span tags and actual text. If that isn't practical - if for some reason the table must be complex - tag it correctly using the span property in accordance with ISO-14289/The Matterhorn Protocol. If the table is properly tagged and 'the reader' (you don't specify what reader - is it Adobe Read Out Loud, or NVDA, or JAWS, or ??) does not read it properly then the reader is broken and the maker of the reader needs to fix it. Without a consistent standard (ISO 14289), trying to get an arbitrary document to be read correctly by an arbitrary reader, is a wild goose chase. If all PDFs and all readers follow ISO 14289, then all documents will be read properly by all readers. ... View more

Is the checker telling you "Color contrast - Needs manual check"? If so, this is not an error, just a friendly reminder. Color contrast, along with correct reading order and many other accessibility factors, cannot be reliably machine-checked and requires knowledgeable human inspection. Passing the Acrobat accessibility checker is a great first step, but should never be confused with 508 compliance.  For human inspection of color contrast, a great tool is the Colour Contrast Analyser from the Paciello Group (https://developer.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrastanalyser/) For reading order and other accessibility factors that required human inspection, a great tool is the Screen Reader Preview built into PAC3 from Access for All (https://www.access-for-all.ch/en/pdf-lab/pdf-accessibility-checker-pac/downloading-pac.html) Both of these tools are free. ... View more

First, I am not sure what you mean by "automatic tagging is out of the question". Are you not able to use 'Autotag Document' in the Acrobat Pro accessibility tools? If you don't want to mess up the tags throughout the document you can extract the misbehaving page, autotag it, then insert it back into the document and delete the original page. If that isn't the right solution for your case ... I frequently run into content that resists manual tagging. I don't know why it happens, but here are some things to try ... Check the Content Pane. If the content that resists tagging is already inside a container, drag it outside the container then delete the now-empty container. Frequently - but not always - the content can then be tagged. If that doesn't work ... Sometimes I temporarily combine content that resists tagging with content that is properly tagged. For example, If I have a properly tagged paragraph followed by a paragraph that resists tagging, I can open the Content Pane, drag the content that resists tagging into the same <P> container with the properly tagged content, then - back in the Tags Pane, retag the first paragraph. This should split the combined paragraphs, giving you two properly tagged paragraphs. If that doesn't work or is too time consuming... I have no idea why, but if I extract the misbehaving page I can frequently tag it with no issues, then insert it back into the original document and delete the original page. If none of the above works, desperate measures are called for. I extract the page. In the Thumbnails Pane, I insert a blank page. I now have a two-page document - the misbehaving page and a blank page. Using the deprecated but still useful 'Make changes to object' tool, select all of the content on the misbehaving page. - copy. Move to the blank page - paste. Delete the misbehaving page, tag the formerly blank page, reinsert into original document, delete original misbehaving page. Hope this helps. ... View more

The Order Panel is worse than useless. I always use the Content Panel instead. It gives a greater level of control and doesn't eff up the tag order. ... View more

I would put the superscripted number in a <Reference> tag and the footnote in a <Note> tag. The <Note> should be placed as close as practical to the <Reference> without disrupting the reading flow, not left at the end of the page. The end result would look something like ... <P> __ Now is the time for all good men __ <Reference> ____ 1 __ to come to the aid of their country. __ <Note> ____ 1 Most scholars believe the word 'men' was intended to be inclusive of all genders. ... View more

I would put the asterisk in a <Reference> tag and the footnote in a <Note> tag. Since neither exist in the TURO tool, I would have to tag the content as something else, create the correct tag in the Tags pane, then move the content into the correct tag and delete the now empty incorrect tag. The <Note> should be placed as close as practical to the <Reference> without disrupting the reading flow. The end result would look something like ... <P> __ ... these sensories. __ <Reference> ____ * __ (If we believe ... __ <Note> ____ * But note: even ... ... View more

I don't have personal experience with this, but this is what I would try .... Set the document language property to the appropriate RTL language. Nest each LTR expression in a <Span> tag and set the language property of each <Span> tag to the appropriate LTR language. ... View more

Too add to jane-e's advice ... As jane-e alluded, you are much better off if your source document is accessible. If using MS Word, make sure your doc passes the accessibility checker built into Word (styles are a great start but there is much more to it). You will need Adobe Acrobat Pro, and it is kinda expensive. Depending on what you mean by "Accessible" (e.g. "JAWS can sort of make sense of it" or "meets WCAG 2.0" or "meets both WCAG 2.0 and ISO 14289") a good PDF accessibility checker - better than the one built into Acrobat Pro - is your friend. PAC 3 from Access for All is excellent and free and Google will easily find it. If you go for ISO 14289 conformance then the Matterhorn Protocol provides the compliance criteria (again, Google will find it) - see https://taggedpdf.com/508-pdf-help-center/  (this is a shameless plug for my website, if that was not obvious). If you are happy with some lesser level of accessibility, then the applicable compliance criteria for whatever that is. Remember that any automated checker can only help with a subset of accessibility issues - many require knowledgeable human inspection and that knowledge is hard fought and not for free. And ... if you were thinking this would be entirely automated or otherwise easy, sorry for that. ... View more

I struggle mightily with doing even simple PDF edits too. Thing is, Acrobat is just not, was never intended, and will likely never be the proper tool for creating or editing a document. The creation and editing of the source document should take place in a tool intended for the purpose, like MS Word. When done, the finished document can then be converted to PDF. I use Acrobat primarily as a tool to make the converted PDF conform to WCAG and ISO 14389. Adobe has built very limited editing capability into Acrobat over the years, but it is very much a hit or (mostly) miss affair. ... View more

Nested list ... <P>  ... a <L> ... <LI> ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... • ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... b ... ... ... <L> ... ... ... ... <LI> ... ... ... ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... ... ... ... o ... ... ... ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... ... ... ... c ... ... ... ... <LI> ... ... ... ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... ... ... ... o ... ... ... ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... ... ... ... d ... ... ... ... <LI> ... ... ... ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... ... ... ... o ... ... ... ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... ... ... ... e ... <LI> ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... • ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... f ... <LI> ... ... <Lbl> ... ... ... • ... ... <LBody> ... ... ... g ... View more

Hi Marion, "I can't delete the tag because it's not empty." Why not? What happens, exactly, when you try to delete the tag? How are you trying to create the artifact in the Content pane? It generally works for me to drag the content to be artifacted out of the P container, select it, right click, and "Create artifact". On the other hand, sometimes PDFs are just possessed. You might just have one of those. ... View more

"I have to make it accessible for the school website." What criteria does the school use to determine if a PDF is accessible? If the criteria includes 508, WCAG 2.0 (which 508 now maps to), or ISO 14289 (i.e. PDF/UA) then getting the Acrobat accessibility checker to pass is just the first step. Many PDF accessibility issues require knowledgeable human inspection - they cannot be machine-checked. For example the Matterhorn Protocol includes 87 PDF/UA failure conditions that can be determined by software, and 47 failure conditions that require human judgment. In your situation I would revert back to the original PDF, fix the 17 issues manually (not by running a wizard), then move on to PAC 3 testing and human checking. ... View more

One solution would be to nest an unusual word in a <Span> tag with Actual Text providing exactly the way you want it to be read. ... View more

Proper reading order for PDF accessibility depends on the order of the tags, not the order of the content. So, make sure the tags are in the right order in the Tags pane and that the tab order for each page is set to 'Use Document Structure'. If you would like to re-order the content anyway I recommend always using the Content pane, never the Order pane. In my experience the Order pane is worse than useless and I gave up on it years ago. ... View more

What screen reader are you using? If it is Adobe Read Out Load, it is not 'real' assistive technology and should not be expected to read the tags correctly. Try using NVDM or JAWS or a screen reader emulator like VIP or the one built into PAC 3. ... View more

So, the list item body is split across a page break? Tag each part as LBody. In the Tags pane, expand both LBody tags. Drag the content out of the second tag into the first one. Delete the now empty second LBody tag. ... View more

Sorry, really hard to say without examining the PDF. Sometimes there is a null string for Alternate Text or Actual Text that is impossible to see and fix without diving into the innards of the tag. See https://taggedpdf.com/508-pdf-help-center/actual-text-with-null-string/ Or, could be something completely different. You might try the free PAC 3 from Access for All. It does a more thorough job compared to the checker built in to Acrobat Pro, and sometimes is better at pointing out the specifics of errors. Downloading PAC 3 - Stiftung «Zugang für alle» ... View more

"the accessibility full check only prompt error on one of the PDF" Hard to say. One of the images may be marked as an artifact or incorrectly tagged as text or something else. "How can I trust the full check result of accessibility?" You can't and shouldn't. An automated checker can be helpful in checking certain aspects of accessibility, but can't do the whole job - not by a long shot. How i fully confirm the PDF is compliant to W3C to the public? A knowledgeable person must check the PDF against all the W3C and/or ISO 14289 criteria - depending on your requirements. ... View more

Repeating footers should be marked as background artifacts. ... View more