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Re: Issues with Adobe accessibility checker converting PPTx to PDF

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From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Feb 3, 2023 12:52PM

Hi Catherine,

My first thought when trying to remediate a Powerpoint file is to check
whether the slides content was arranged using the Slides Master for evoking
the combinations of text and images needed on each slide in the correct
format. People often instead use the text box tool or image box tool to
place new content on a slide and this can create problems for exporting to
PDF, since these free boxes are not considered part of the logical reading
order and may also lack some of the native formatting that ensures a
correctly tagged exported PDF.

Now you mentioned PPTx instead of PPT so if Powerpoint isn't being used but
instead Open Office or similar, you would have to find out which program is
being used and hopefully that application has its own documentation for
making an accessible slideshow. At minimum, I would expect the app also
uses something like Slides Master to ensure logical reading order and other
native tools to ensure proper tagged format in the exported PDF.

If they are using Powerpoint, WebAIM actually has a good tutorial about
accessible Powerpoint: https://webaim.org/techniques/powerpoint/

Goodluck trying to troubleshoot!

*x*
*Christine Hogenkamp (She, Her)*
Front-end Developer
ContextCreative.com <http://contextcreative.com/>;


> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Sent: 03 February 2023 18:09
> To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Subject: [WebAIM] Issues with Adobe accessibility checker converting PPTx
> to PDF
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Hope your day is going well. I'm looking for some guidance regarding the
> aforementioned subject. One of our profs is having issues with PDF
> accessibility and specifically, the false positives when running the
> checker in Adobe. I copy here some exchanges regarding the problem they are
> having. But from what I understand, they are hoping to eliminate the false
> positives from the report as it requires more checking and it is already a
> lot of work. Is there anything more I can tell them, besides what has
> already been provided?
> A little background:
>
> After the prof reached out to an internal IT resource, they got this
> answer:
>
>
>
> "I've taken a look and I'm wondering whether you should not check off
> 'Enable Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF box' as it may be
> overwriting you accessibility pieces that you have done in pptx.
>
>
>
> That would be my first go-to in determining why this is happening and to
> simply NOT select that option (Enable Accessibility and Reflow with
> tagged Adobe PDF) as that option may be adding proper tags for headings,
> lists, hyperlinks, and other structural elements in the PDF document
> when it was already there in the pptx."
>
>
>
> The prof then replied (please see attached screenshots):
>
>
>
> "I followed your suggestion: I saved the PPTX as a PDF with the Enable
> Accessibility and Reflow with tagged Adobe PDF box unchecked. Below, I
> provide excerpts (in the form of screenshots) of the Adobe accessibility
> checker reports from when the box was unchecked and then from when the
> box was checked. It seems unchecking the box does not resolve the
> problem."
>
>
>
> They then got this reply:
>
>
>
> "The accessibility report in PDF is reading the textboxes that was
> created in the PPTX format as figures. It is still good to check what
> the reasoning is for PDF to be flagging these figures, but with a deeper
> analysis after the reports, it is clear that alt text was maintained and
> this was a false positive flag.
>
> As you said, doing a review of the errors from the accessibility report
> via text to speech to go through the flagged material may be beneficial
> to see if there is something going on with these error flags. Some will
> be an actual error where you will work on correcting and some will be
> false errors."
>
>
>
> And then they reached out to me to see if there was any way to resolve
> this at the source. I'm not a PDF specialist, so I'm turning to the
> community to see if there are any ideas about this. Please note the prof
> is already using the Accessibility Checker in PPTx and have the
> rudimentary knowledge to make their PPTx accessible using the MS
> accessibility checker. I apologize if this email is a bit confusing or
> if this is off-topic, but this is basically the only info I have. I
> would appreciate feedback on this issue.
>
> Thanks,
> Catherine
>
>