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Re: Alt text for images in Word 2010 always get lost when "save as PDF" is selected

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Nov 26, 2012 11:26AM

Yes, Adobe Acrobat Pro needs to be installed on the workstation. Reader does
not create PDFs so it doesn't include the Acrobat plug-ins (or tools) for
MS Office.

If MS Office (including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and other office
applications) is already installed, Acrobat will install its plug-in (with
its conversion settings and tools) in those applications. It adds a new
tab/ribbon bar named "Acrobat" as well as a PDF printer driver (virtual
printer, that is).

If MS Office is installed after Acrobat, then there won't be an Acrobat tab,
plug-in, tools, or controls for conversion settings, so you can't make an
accessible PDF from Word.

The basic ground rules I give my clients:
1) Make sure Acrobat is installed last, after all other software, so that it
can drop its plug-in into MS Office.
2) If your copy of MS Office is upgraded, you might lose the Acrobat plug-in
entirely or Acrobat will not perform correctly when exporting PDFs from MS
Office (behavior like what Birkir described). If that's the case, uninstall
Acrobat, reboot the computer, and reinstall Acrobat so that it can add the
Acrobat plug-in again and fix the installation of Acrobat.

-Bevi Chagnon
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