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Re: Acrobat instability when using screenreaders

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From: Roger Kowallis
Date: Jun 23, 2010 3:42PM

After running a few more tests, the instability still seems to be caused by something other than incorrectly using headings or list tags. I removed the list tags and republished the document from Word, but the problem remains. While navigating the PDF file with a screen reader, the Acrobat application eventually gets sluggish and locks up.

I even tried creating a new Word document and pasted all the content back into the document as just plain text. After publishing to PDF the same problem still exists...

Any ideas?

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Duff Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 12:09 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Acrobat instability when using screenreaders

On Jun 23, 2010, at 1:45 PM, Roger Kowallis wrote:

> Try this one: http://cmstest1.test.utah.edu/sample2.pdf

This file is incorrectly tagged at a variety of levels, but I don't see anything that should cause "instability" per se.

Tagging problems include:

1. Incorrect usage of List tags
2. Incorrect usage of Heading tags
3. Rule-lines should be artifacts (right now they have alt. text reading "---".

On the other hand, all the tags are, at least, in the right order.

It's possible that the list tags are screwing things up - certainly, they will confuse the heck out of a screen-reader.

Suggestion: Remove the list tags (ie, convert to Paragraph tags) and see if the problem remains. This would be best accomplished by redesigning the Word file to remove the unnecessary enumeration, then re-creating the PDF.

Duff Johnson
Appligent Document Solutions, CEO
US Committee for ISO/CD 14289 (PDF/UA), Chair

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