PDF is all spans from InDesign

[derrickl68715957]

Hi

I have the newest version of InDesign and Acrobat Pro, and everything was fine but then all of a sudden my print and interactive PDFs exported (with tags) and in Acrobat all I see are spans, all spans in the Order Panel and Touch Up tool. No other tags show, except in the Tags panel the tags look fine.

I uninstalled the programs, no change...still a problem.

Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks!

L

[Mike Witherell]

What version and OS are you?

[derrickl68715957]

see below

[Chad Chelius]

What exactly is the problem if the tags look fine in the tags pane? The InDesign team did make changes to how accessible PDF files are generated in InDesign CC 2018 so you may see differences with the new version. What are your concerns?

[derrickl68715957]

I think my answer came out below!

[derrickl68715957]

Have OS Sierra 10.12.6. I got the MacAir computer about a week ago and it worked fine, no issues. Then all of a sudden it started to do this!

I either open an InDesign file from the web (I tried many) or I create my own. I export to print or interactive (I tried both), and all give me the same issue.

When I open the PDF, I see the tags look fine, but when I use the touch up reading order tool, I only see spans, figures and tables, nothing else, no headings, paragraphs, nothing..I see numbers for the Order Panel fine, but it is the TURO tool that won't show me the tags...

I then tried to uninstall both Pro and InDesign (both latest versions), installed and same thing...then I tried to do the one version back of InDesign, same thing

Any help you can provide is hugely appreciated!!! I also had a room full of mac users try this too with not the most current version of 2018 (that update was last week), but the version before it and they saw the same thing! They were using an InDesign file I gave them on stick.

Off topic: Chad you do great training online, some of the best I have seen!

Cheers

L

[Chad Chelius]

Thanks for the kind words L! Let me ask you. Do you get the same results with other InDesign files now or is it isolated to this one specific file? That answer might help us to determine the problem.

[derrickl68715957]

All files, weird!

I spent a good hour with adobe support and it turns out that I am having issues with the create tags on export feature! When I use the print PDF and don't click create tags, I export it and tag it in Acrobat Pro and it seems to work. Now I haven't gone through every tag, but at least now I see P and Hx tags!

It is very odd, he even cleared the machine cache, which I thought might be the issue, but nope that didn't solve it. The not creating tags and using Print did solve it. I thought I might have to use Interactive since I had hyperlinks and bookmarks, but seems it doesn't matter!

Thanks!

L

[Chad Chelius]

Hi L,

Printing to PDF as you probably already know removes the InDesign engine from the equation and doesn't tag anything at all. This is definitely the hard way to make an accessible PDF file. Would you be willing to send me the file so I can test on my end?

[derrickl68715957]

Hi Chad,

Yep, the hard way indeed! Yes, I can definitely send it to you. Do you want the indd and the pdf? How best to get it to you?

Thanks!

L

[Chad Chelius]

Send me a direct message with a link to the file or I can give you my email address.

[derrickl68715957]

Thanks so much, I will direct message you and see if you can find the answer! Adobe can't figure it out, and I found more computers that have had this issue (more on that in the direct message).

[rohit_ID]

Hi Derrick

Can you please share your file at rdubey@adobe.com .

Thanks

Rohit

[derrickl68715957]

Hello Rohit,

Thank you so much, I will send all the information to you.

L

[Chad Chelius]

After looking at the file, I can see that the problem is that you don’t have any styles for the text in the document. All of the text is using the “Normal” style with local overrides to the text. This will always produce spans around all of the content which explains what you were seeing. I created a few styles for the first several lines of copy in your file, and you’ll see that if you export the file to PDF now, there are no spans. Keep in mind that these <span> tags are not a failure condition but it does make for messy tags. Always use styles in InDesign, not just for accessibility, but for efficient and consistent formatting as well.  hope that helps!

[derrickl68715957]

Hi Chad,

I haven't sent my file yet, was that message for someone else? For me, I used Paragraph Styles...

[derrickl68715957]

Forget my last email, I see that was from the other thread with another file. I will send you mine this weekend. I used styles, but it is a good tip to give if people don't (about the spans). One question, so this creates spans, but shouldn't the Tags Panel echo the TURO tool? I am confused because the tool is always the same as the Tags Panel, except with this weirdness.

[Steve Werner]

You'd have to talk to the Acrobat team about why they display in the Tags panel the way they do.

You could post here:

Standards & Accessibility (tagged PDF)

[Chad Chelius]

Hi Steve,

It's actually not an Acrobat issue, it's an issue with InDesign and how it's generating the Content that Acrobat is displaying correctly 😉

[Steve Werner]

Chad, I hope you've filed a bug report. It takes someone with sufficient knowledge of the problems of remediation, which you certainly do!

I was watching your videos on Lynda.com the other night, hoping they could be updated to incorporate all the changes that came with InDesign CC 2018.

[Chad Chelius]

Thanks Steve, already working on it 😉

[Steve Werner]

Good news! When questions of accessibility and remediation come up, your Lynda.com videos are what I recommend for learning the subject. Thanks.

[Kelly McCathran]

Chad,

Thanks for keeping me up to date on this issue. Adobe if you are watching, I have a VERY large client undertaking an accessibility overhaul right now and this is a big issue. Do we know when it will be resolved?

[Chad Chelius]

Sorry about that, I got the two posts confused!

[derrickl68715957]

No worries, my fault for keeping two threads alive at the same time!