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Re: Untagged PDF doc with table structure

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Feb 18, 2015 7:09AM

Tags are not added to the document when you open an untagged PDF and use
this option. What happens is that "Virtual" Tags are added based on the fact
that you are using a "trusted assistive technology" recognized by Acrobat or
Reader. This allows temporary access to the content and the Tags are not
saved when the document is closed or if you choose to save the document
under a different name.

I just tested this in Acrobat with an untagged PDF. This is a stop-gap tool
to allow access to legacy PDF documents but since there are still many
untagged PDF being produced, it is part of our daily toolbox.

If you are going to add actual Tags to a PDF, dismiss this message before
you use the Add Tags tool as I find it tends to confuse the real tagging
process and I get some interesting versions of the Add Tags Report.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lynn Holdsworth
Sent: February 18, 2015 7:36 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Untagged PDF doc with table structure

Hi all,

Apologies if PDF accessibility is off topic. If so is there a list that
covers this?

But if not ...

I open a PDF document, and Adobe Reader alerts me that it's untagged.

So I begin to peruse it using JAWS, and come across a table whose structure
is robust enough for me to move around it using the JAWS table keystrokes.

Does this mean there *are* tags in the document after all? Or has Adobe
Reader used heuristics to add tags to improve the doc's accessibility, since
my settings flag up that I'm using a screenreader?

I tried to download a trial version of Acrobat Pro so as to examine the
document structure, but the download assistant seems inaccessible.

Thanks as always, Lynn
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