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Re: PDF column tag

for

From: chagnon
Date: Jul 25, 2022 12:09AM

You're describing the reading order of the document, and that is controlled in two areas of the PDF:

1: The primary reading order is the Tag Tree. All PDF/UA compliant assistive technologies should read (or process) the content in the order it appears in the Tags Tree. So check the tag tree.

2: The Order panel is used by some assistive technologies and it, too, should be in a logical order. Hopefully it matches the Tag Tree reading order, but that's not possible in some visual designs so make it match as closely as possible.

Learn more about the 4 reading orders in PDFs at https://pubcom.com/blog/2020_08-18_ReadingOrder/reading-orders.shtml

All of these reading orders are created based on how the original source document was created. So if you learn how to use Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe InDesign correctly, you shouldn't have reading order problems.

Reading across the columns, as Sean describes, can also be a problem with the screen reader or text-to-speech technology, not the PDF. Cheaper or older assistive technologies often can't correctly interpret a PDF correctly.

One key utility is Acrobat's built in Read Out Loud, which is an antiquated piece of crap programming. We do not recommend wasting any time using it to test PDFs for accessibility compliance — you'll only get false positives and false negatives. Test with a real screen reader such as NVDA or JAWS.

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