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unioman
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Acrobat X - Read this Page Only not working

Aug 10, 2012 10:40 AM

Tags: #acrobat #read_out_loud #read_this_page_only

Hello,

 

I have Acrobat Pro X, and need to make accessible PDFs from InDesign. Before I upgraded to Acrobat X, I used to have Acrobat read the text to me to help check the reading order. But in Acrobat X, the "Read this page only" selection does not work. If I click on some text, it will read that line, but that doesn't help me to see what order it will actually read since it doesn't read the next line to the end of the page unless I manually click on it.

 

My problem is that we tag things in InDesign and set up the proper reading order (we've tried using the structure and using the Articles panel...), but in the Reading Order panel, it often shows a different order. Even two text frames that are threaded, it will show the 2nd text frame as being 1st in the reading order rather than the 1st text frame where the text originated. That makes no sense. The tag structure in the PDF looks correct but the reading order does not (if viewing from the TouchUp Reading Order view.

 

So we want to make sure we check the reading order, and having it read the page to us is one of the easiest ways to do this.

 

Anyone have this kind of problem? Any suggestions to get it to actually read the entire page?

2409 Views   4 Replies   Latest reply: Dunkir, Dec 3, 2012 10:27 PM
 
Replies
  • CtDave
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    1. CtDave,
    Aug 17, 2012 7:09 AM   in reply to unioman
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    ROL was not intend to be a "validation" tool.

    It is a simple text to speech tool which happily chugs along left to right, top down for western languages.

     

    AT uses the structure tree. If the structure tree is well-formed (PDF/UA compliant) your PDF will be good to go.

    So, ones focus needs to be on the Tags panel / structure tree.

     

    ~~~~~~~


    For those who need to or desire to provide accessible PDF the release of the ISO standard for PDF/UA is a "must have" reference.
    --| The ISO Standard for PDF/UA (ISO 14289-1:2008)
    Purchase at: http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=BS+ISO+14289-1%3a2012
    Purchase at ISO: http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=54564


    Three additional documents also belong on one's 'bookshelf".


    --| Achieving WCAG 2.0 with PDF/UA (Available)
    http://www.aiim.org/Research-and-Publications/standards/committees/PDF UA/WCAG20-Mapping


    --| PDF/UA-1 Technical Implementation Guide
    PDF/UA Technical Implementation Guide will be displayed when available at PDFUA Technical Implementation Guide
    http://www.aiim.org/Research-and-Publications/standards/committees/PDF UA/Technical-Implementation-Guide


    -| PDF/UA-1 Technical Implementation Guide: 32000-1
    PDF/UA Technical Implementation Guide for ISO 32000-1 will be displayed when available to PDF/UA Technical Implementation Guide:32000-1
    http://www.aiim.org/Research-and-Publications/standards/committees/PDF UA/Technical-Implementation-Guide-32000-1

     

    Be well...

     
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  • raeben3
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    2. raeben3,
    Aug 17, 2012 12:26 PM   in reply to unioman
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    It is often a good idea use a screen reader to check the accessibility of  files -- even if you check the Tag Structure, content and order panels. Sometimes a file can be corrupt and will not read, even though the tags are perfect and the file passes the Accessibility checker.  This does not happen very often, but I have had it happen several times.

     

    And many people recommend using a screen reader to check pages with figures or tables.  Read Aloud will NOT do a very good job of checking tables. I don't think it can identify row and column headers or identify cells associated with them.  There are a number of screen readers available for download that are more sophisticated and much better suited for checking file accessibility.  For exampe, Freedom Scientific's Jaws runs in demo mode. You may want to try that.

     

    Regardless, while the Read Outloud feature was not designed to validate and is not the best tool for the job, it should be working for you. 

     

    You could try using Read Outloud on different files, or on a different machine and see if that makes any difference.  Sometimes system updates and/or software conflicts may effect things. Check and see if the shortcuts below have any effect --

    Ctrl ShiftBRead out loud from the current page to the end of the document
    Ctrl ShiftCPause reading out loud
    Ctrl ShiftEStop reading out loud
    Ctrl ShiftVRead only the current page out loud
    Ctrl ShiftYActivate and deactivate read out loud

     

    Good luck and let us know if you have resolved the issue.

     
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  • unioman
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    3. unioman,
    Nov 21, 2012 7:17 AM   in reply to raeben3
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    Both of those responses were helpful in some way. However, I still want to get my read out loud function to work. Any thoughts on that?

     

    I did try various PDFs and I seem to have the same problem on all of them. If I tell Acrobat to read the entire page - it either does nothing or, once in a while, it actually skips to the next page (I think in those instances, it doesn't think there is anything on the page so it moves to the next page?).

     

    However, when I click on a sentence, it will highlght that area in a rectangle and will read that. Although I've had plenty of instances where it will highlight the block but not read it, but I could highlight the next block and it will read that. So it is very inconsistent. In previous versions of Acrobat, I didn't seem to have any problem with this, but when we upgraded to CS6, that's when we had problems.

     

    We can take the same PDF to other computers (on a PC) or with an older version of Acrobat, and it will read them, but we'd like to get it working on our Macs with the newer version of Acrobat. So I'm not sure what the problem is. All of our machines that have Acrobat Pro 10.1.4 have this problem with inconsistent reading.

     

    Thank you for your time!

     
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  • Dunkir
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    4. Dunkir,
    Dec 3, 2012 10:27 PM   in reply to unioman
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    unioman, I am trying to do exactly the same thing for exactly the same reasons and having exactly the same problem. I just tested my pdf on a PC and it reads it as expected. I think we can conclude that there is a bug with the mac version of Acrobat Pro X. We should both report it via Adobe's feature request/bug report page which ironically today seems to have a bug... https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

     

    So that deals with the read out loud issue.

     

    The reading order/structure issue is a whole other bug nest and if you have any solutions, I'd be extremely happy to hear them!

     

    CtDave, thanks for the PDFUA links although I was already aware of them. If anyone knows of a good, straightforward guide which maps InDesign actions to those PDFUA / WCAG2.0 requirements, I'd love to see it. The technical guides are awfully technical. I want a guide that sets out in simple terms how to create/set up your InDesign document so that you can export it as an accessible PDF, particularly what to do with tables, structure/reading order.

     

    I became a graphic designer to design, not do all this technical accessibility stuff yet I'm now the dogsbody responsible for making all this work in our studio!

    cheers

    Kirsten

     
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