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Re: disrupting reading order when merging/splitting cellsin PDF table editor

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From: McMorland, Gabriel
Date: Jul 30, 2013 9:52AM

Thanks, -Bevi. We often cannot get the original documents because they are academic journal articles downloaded from databases. I feel like this must be a common challenge at universities.



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Chagnon | PubCom
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 5:38 PM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] disrupting reading order when merging/splitting cells in PDF table editor

Although the Touch-Up-Reading-Order tool (TURO) and its Table Editor have been improved, Table Editor is still the most difficult tool to use in the Acrobat toolbox. (I'm trying to be diplomatic here!)

After countless years of using it, I have all but given up! Here are my
solutions:

1) Go back to the original source document and fix the table there and re-export it to PDF. Recent versions of Word + Acrobat XI plug-in, as well as Adobe InDesign CS6 and CC, tag most tables correctly.

2) Use CommonLook to correct the table.

Would love to hear what solutions others use.

-Bevi Chagnon
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-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of McMorland, Gabriel
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2013 4:42 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] disrupting reading order when merging/splitting cells in PDF table editor

A colleague and I are learning to reapir the accessibility of PDFs. We are having a consistent problem using the table editor, even after reading the manual and watching an instructional video on Adobe TV.

When merging or splitting cells in a data table, the new cell always appears outside the table in the document's reading order.The new cell should be nested inside the hierarchy of the table tag, but it always appears outside the table.
We use the mouse to select the borders of the new cell.
What are we doing wrong?