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Re: Untagged PDF doc with table structure

for

From: L Snider
Date: Feb 18, 2015 12:51PM

Hi Bevi,

One question on this:
1. Run Acrobat's accessibility checker. This looks at only about 20% of the
document's features, so don't depend on it for a full check.

This is the full report and check, right? If so, what else would you check?

Cheers

Lisa

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 1:41 PM, Chagnon | PubCom < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Lynn, I too have a strong programming background in HTML, as well as SGML,
> XML, and many other markup languages. So tags plus reading order create the
> document's structure in my mind! In theory, I don't believe a PDF can have
> any structure, good or bad, without tags. All PDFs have a page
> architecture,
> but that's not the same thing as structure.
>
> Lynn asked: " if so how would I recognise it if I were to examine the
> document's building blocks "
>
> You have to examine it from several viewpoints in Acrobat Pro. I teach my
> students this method:
> 1. Run Acrobat's accessibility checker. This looks at only about 20% of the
> document's features, so don't depend on it for a full check.
>
> 2. Run down the tag tree, top-to-bottom. I call this the tag reading order.
> For sighted users, they can arrow down from tag to tag and also see on the
> page which item is highlighted for each tag. They'll see very quickly that
> the figures weren't read at the correct place in the tag tree, or that the
> second half of body text was read first, then the heading 1, then the
> remaining body text.
>
> For screen reader users, this is what your software is using. But it's more
> difficult to tell if the document is correct. Were you able to hear and
> figure out what was read? Did it make sense (not the content itself, but
> the
> order in which you heard it)? Screen readers also can't tell sometimes if
> it's tagged correctly. Example: Adobe InDesign has a tragic flaw. When a
> sidebar (boxed text that's secondary to the main story) is exported to PDF,
> the conversion isn't correct. All of the text is jumbled together;
> paragraphs are lost, including any headings, bulleted lists, tables,
> figures, etc. So a screen reader just hears the text run-on blah blah blah,
> but never knows if he's reading one paragraph, multiple paragraphs,
> headings, or any other parts of a document. My screen reader testers often
> miss these problems; they just can't tell if they've missing something or
> if
> it's incorrect.
>
> 3. Run down the "real" reading order. This is the Order panel in Acrobat.
> Often overlooked by many in accessible documentation, this is the original
> reading order that's still used by many assistive technologies, including
> braille printers and keyboards. I've never had any of my screen reader
> testers review this because their software has a hard time voicing it in a
> way that makes sense to them. But they can see this reading order another
> way; View / Zoom / Reflow. This utility rejiggers the visual layout on the
> screen to mimic the real reading order. Columns are removed, everything is
> sequential and linear, top to bottom. So if the first item read by a screen
> reader happens to be the photo caption, not heading 1, then you have a
> reading order problem.
>
> 4. After that, the usual review of tags, tables, alt-text, etc. takes
> place.
>
> --Bevi Chagnon
>
>