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Re: Untagged PDF doc with table structure

for

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Feb 18, 2015 1:12PM

Agree with Andrew. Bad tags do not create a structure.

Adobe InDesign is famous for creating ridiculous tags in PDFs exported from
the layout files. Tags like <blue_subhead_with_extra_space_above> or
<judys_inserted_copy> are some I recently saw. Acrobat erroneously creates
the tags from the names of the designer's paragraph formatting styles, not
from what has been programmed to be <h1> or <h2>. So Acrobat's Role Map
utility has to reinterpret those wild and crazy tags into normal <h1>, <h2>
etc tags.

A lot depends on 4 things:

1) The software version in which the software was created. MS Word 2013 tags
things more correctly than Word 2010 or 2007. Same with Adobe InDesign.
Always use the most recent version to create the source documents. Standards
change, as well as the tools we use to create to those standards, so the
latest software version will always give the best results and, hopefully,
builds documents to the latest standards. As an example, look how the
tagging of lists has changed over the past 10 years.

2) The software version of Acrobat that was used to create the PDF. In MS
Word, for example, when we select File / Save as PDF, we're invoking an
Acrobat module (or plug-in) in Word that interprets the Word document to
create the PDF. Which version of Acrobat did the conversion? Acrobat 11 does
a better job than 10 which does a better job than 9. FYI, you can see the
versions of Acrobat and the source program in the PDF's File / Properties
utility. Also, some people use non-Adobe PDF makers, which from my
experience don't make accessible PDFs at all.

3) The conversion settings (or preferences) when the PDF was exported from
the source document. Miss a few checkboxes in the settings and you won't get
an accessible PDF.

4) The skill of the person who created the source document and the PDF. If
they don't know how to use Word's footnote utility and instead insert them
by hand, then the PDF's footnotes won't be fully accessible. If they're a
novice user of Adobe InDesign, forget it! The file will be a inaccessible
nightmare!

--Bevi Chagnon