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Update: PDF Maker problems

for

From: chagnon
Date: Sep 27, 2021 2:48PM

Thanks to everyone who posted their concerns (and other "feelings") about
the recent problems with PDFs exported from Word with Adobe's PDF Maker
plug-in. We have more than 150 votes at
https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/garage-floor-resurfacing-fix-a-pitted
-garage-floor/

(As some commented, what does it mean when we have to vote to get bugs
fixed?)

Some good news and not so good news.

1. Our blog that details the problems also has some help
https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2021-09-24_bugs/bugs_pdfmaker_1.shtml:

a. A handout you can use to export PDFs from Word using Microsoft's
built-in PDF utility. At this time, it's not putting in any of the problems
as Adobe's, but who knows. Both companies have been known to seriously botch
this process.
https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2021-09-24_bugs/bugs_pdfmaker_1.shtml#download
We've given our instructions a creative commons license, which will allow
you to electronically distribute it within your organization.

2. Adobe has said they are working on a bug fix for the missing
Alt-text on graphics.

3. But upon further testing over the weekend, we've documented another
twist on that bug: When a graphic is manually marked in Word as decorative /
artifacted, the resulting tagged PDF is a mess:

a. PDF Maker adds gibberish code as Alt-text.

b. It is tagged as <P> with the image data. Not only is this a
violation of the PDF/UA-1 standard (image data must be in a <Figure> tag),
but it is voiced as a confusing bunch of crud: no announcement that there's
an image, the screen readers pick up the gibberish Alt-text.

c. See the September 27 update to our blog at
https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2021-09-24_bugs/bugs_pdfmaker_1.shtml#sept27

4. Issues are found in the Mac update as well, including this one
about dragging/dropping in Acrobat's tree panels:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/acrobat-pro-accessibility
-tools-not-working/m-p/12408086#M331041

5. And I'll end on some good news. Adobe has released the super-secret
instructions on how to remove the current buggy version of Acrobat and roll
back to the previous install. See Ankit Kumar Gupta's solution at
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/install-the-previous-patc
h-update/m-p/12387847#M3... Suggestion: keep that information for future
reference, and pass it along to your IT department.

My best to you.and please encourage others to vote.

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Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | <EMAIL REMOVED>
<mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >

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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing

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Latest blog-newsletter
<https://mailchi.mp/e694edcdfadd/class-discount-3266574> - Simple Guide to
Writing Alt-Text
<https://www.pubcom.com/blog/2020_07-20/alt-text_part-1.shtml>