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PDFs and NVDA

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From: LSnider
Date: Aug 21, 2011 12:00PM

Hello Everyone,

I have always tagged PDFs, but I know there is a lot more one can do to make
them accessible. I am doing a lot of work on accessible PDFs right now and
have a question.

I did a test document from Word, and used the proper heading structure. I
made a PDF of it and then tagged it in Acrobat. I am a sighted viewer but
use NVDA as a screen reader (JAWS killed my computer a couple of months
back, must have been a video driver issue).

I assumed that NVDA would be able to list the headings, but that didn't
happen-it was just a blank list (even though I did them properly in word).
So I changed the reading options in Acrobat from infer reading order in
document to tagged reading order and then NVDA happily gave me the list of
headings.

For those of you who use NVDA or JAWS, all the time, when you read PDFs do
you need Acrobat/Reader to be set to tagged reading order? If this is the
case, then what happens when there are no tags? Is it a total mess of
confusion?

Cheers and thanks for your advice in advance.

Lisa