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Re: Adobe InDesign/PDF Accessibility

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From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Jan 5, 2015 1:56PM

Hi Andrew,

while I have your attention on this… ;-)

There are a couple of unfortunate 'limitations' (or in various cases one would have to say 'bugs') in the way InDesign writes tagged PDF (or lets users prepare documents for the export of accessible tagged PDF). Hardly anything has happened to address these since the (extremely useful!) Article panel and related features had been introduced in Adobe InDesign CS 5.5.

For example handling of anchored text frames or anchored groups of frames is a nightmare. Some tags are not supported at all (for example for table of contents - TOC/TOCI - etc.; or for captions, whether in general / next to images, or inside tables). In some cases important aspects of tagging are not supported (e.g. for tables: no support for row headers, or for non-trivial tables). Some strange bugs when writing bullet characters in lists. No possibility to set the document language. And so forth.

Also, despite all the extensibility in InDesign (whether by traditional plug-ins or via the otherwise very powerful JavaScript in InDesign) there is zero opportunity for a plug-in (or JavaScript) to influence how tagged PDF is written (in other words: the PDF export as such is not extensible). All the magic that MadeToTag does (fixing handling of anchored frames, fixing bullets in lists, cleaning up behind InDesign etc. in order to let users create a PDF/UA conforming accessible tagged PDF, get advanced table handling, and much more) is done by post-processing the PDF coming out of InDesign's tagged PDF export. I also have the impression nobody at Adobe cares anymore about making any progress in the field of tagged PDF export from InDesign (and don't get me wrong: I'd love to be proven wrong here!!!).

There are numerous features in MadeToTag that add valuable features on its own [and for which I'd say it is OK if users have to get a plug-in as opposed to finding this functionality built into InDesign], like tag highlighting, language highlighting, structured preview, custom shortcut set for speed tagging, speed editing of alternate text for images, and so forth. Nevertheless over time the axaio team has spent spent substantially more time and work on fixing InDesign than on implementing actual functionality. And we have most probably spent [much] more money on this than it would have cost Adobe to fix the problems.


Or would you disagree with my description of the state of affairs regarding creation of accessible tagged PDF using InDesign?



> […] identify a correct reading order, identify headings and other structures, provide alternative text, etc., [...]

Those serious about creating tagged PDF (especially when going beyond trivial documents) will find it much easier to master this (these are the basics one has to address in any rich content creation / editing environment), than to cope with InDesign introduced limitations and problems.


Olaf




On 5 Jan 2015, at 21:30, Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> +1 to Olaf's comment. Some people's workflow with InDesign supports accessibility with the tools available in the product directly, and some people like the support that is possible through a tool like MadeToTag. The reason that InDesign has an architecture that allows for extensions is to support this sort of thing.
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> However, neither the built-in tools for InDesign nor the MadeToTag tool will remove the need for an author to identify a correct reading order, identify headings and other structures, provide alternative text, etc., as I'm sure everyone on this list is aware.
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> AWK
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>