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Re: PDF accessibility repair question

for

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Jun 23, 2011 4:24PM

Hi, Sean,

The current Touch Up Reading Order Tool in Acrobat isn't ideal for these instances (yes, I'm being tactful).

Try working in the Tags panel instead. If you can select the text using text-selection tools in Acrobat you can "Create tag from selection" in the tags panel.

If you CANNOT select the text using the text-selection tool, then indeed, you have larger (but not insoluble) problems.

Feel free to email me offlist if you need more help.

Duff Johnson
Appligent Document Solutions, CEO

US Committee for ISO/DIS 14289 (PDF/UA), Chair

22 E. Baltimore Ave
Lansdowne, PA 19050
+1 610 284 4006
+1 617 553 1934 (direct)
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.appligent.com
http://www.twitter.com/duffjohnson


On Jun 23, 2011, at 1:22 PM, Sean Keegan wrote:

> I generally think I know what I am doing with PDF documents and
> accessibility, but I am bit stumped on this one and would appreciate a kick
> to the head (or other anatomical region):
>
> I am working to tag PDF documents that were originally authored as MS
> PowerPoint files for a poster display presentations (with no consideration
> for accessibility) and converted to PDF using a Mac. I do not have access
> to the original MS PowerPoint files. Aside from the annoying "z-index-type"
> issues that have occurred when using the TouchUp Reading Order (TURO) Tool
> to zone/mark the PDF documents, most of the files have been relatively
> easily to repair for accessibility issues.
>
> Unfortunately, I am encountering several PDF documents in which the TURO
> Tool will not zone any of the text on the screen. It is text as I can
> copy/paste the text from the document into a text application, but I cannot
> actually zone a text block and get the blue highlight showing what text
> content has been selected. Adding tags automatically as well as manually
> has also failed. I have looked in the Content panel and there is no
> information displayed in that panel view. Attempting to run Adobe Acrobat's
> OCR process fails. I have also tried exporting the document as an Image
> file (to then run through OmniPage), but I cannot export any derivative of
> the PDF. There is no security on the document.
>
> So, at this point, I have a PDF document with text on the screen, but cannot
> use any of the accessibility tools (or any tool actually) to fix the
> document for accessibility purposes. Has anyone else run into this sort of
> document situation and found a solution for adding tags?
>
> Take care,
> Sean
>