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Re: PDF files have user default language set for some tags(<P>, <LBody>, <Link>)

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Apr 6, 2017 11:30AM

I've had a problem with Word over the 2013/2016 cycle where the language of some parts of my documents get switched to FR instead of EN even though they are EN words. I know this because my screen reader starts reading EN words as FR and the dictionary used to spell check suddenly changes to FR. If you go to the Review Ribbon, Language and choose Set Proofing Language, there is a check box to automatically detect languages which I've unchecked and this seems to help.

To be on the safe side, I usually select my document and go through the Review Ribbon to set the default language for the entire document to EN just before I convert it. Doesn't take long, a few keyboard commands, but can save a lot of time in Acrobat.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Dona Patrick
Sent: April 6, 2017 12:01 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] PDF files have user default language set for some tags (<P>, <LBody>, <Link>)

I've just finished remediating a 370 page PDF Spanish language file. I ran it through JAWS and realized that some of the text was being read in Spanish but some were being read in English. When I checked the content of the tags that were being read in English I noticed that the tag properties had English - US listed as the language.

I'd not noticed this before and wondered if I'd accidently enabled a setting in either Acrobat Pro or Word to make this happen. I tested it on both my home and work computers and found that when a Word file was converted to PDF using the Acrobat ribbon or the Save As PDF option on the File menu, English -- US was applied to many tags. When I used the Save option on the File menu and chose PDF from the Save As dialog box, this did not happen -- the language was clear in the tags properties.

Is there any way to remove the language from all of the tag properties in one go or am I doomed to do it for each and every tag? I promised this file to the client by next Thursday and have already spent far too long on it.

Are there settings I have enabled that I should disable to stop this from happening in the future?

I did see a thread that discussed this, but it only discussed this issue in regards to InDesign: http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?threadV87

Thank you,

Dona