Acrobat DC Pro not able to read aloud some text

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Hey hi,

I am trying to make an accessible pdf using InDesign CC 2017 and Acrobat DC Pro.

A surprising amount of the text cannot be read by the Read Aloud function in Acrobat DC Pro.

Test 1

I copied the text box with the unreadable text from my layout and pasted it into a new document and saved it as a pdf. Read Aloud did not work.

Next : I deleted the text from the box and used Indesign's auto placeholder text feature to repopulate the box. I restyled the text using the text styles from my original layout. I saved it as a pdf. This time the Read Aloud feature worked.

Test 2

I copied the  unreadable text from my layout and pasted it into a new text box in a new document and saved it as a pdf. Read Aloud did not work.

Next : I deleted the text and used Indesign's auto placeholder text feature to repopulate the box. I restyled the text using the text styles from my original layout. I saved it as a pdf. This time the Read Aloud feature worked.

readaloud​

[_Crockett_]

Text boxes are typically not accessible by screen readers, including the built-in Read Aloud function. It is best to avoid them.

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Hi Thanks .. text boxes are the only way to work with text in Indesign. Oddly, some of the text is readable, but much of it isn't. I'm trying to narrow down whether it is the Indesign document, the font I am using, or the text from the original Word doc that is creating the problem.

[olafdruemmer]

A sample document would go a long way... (preferably both an InDesign document and the PDF exported from it, illustrating the issue).

There could be a zillion reasons why it does not work some of the time...

Olaf

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Hi Olaf Thanks for your interest in this problem.

It appears to be the original Word doc that is causing the problem. I'm working on a Mac with Word 2011 and Indesign CC 2017. When I generate a pdf from the Word doc, Acrobat cannot read it aloud. When I replace the copy in the Word doc with Lorem Ipsum text, and re-save it as a pdf, Acrobat can read it aloud.

When I save the Indesign doc with the original text as a pdf, Acrobat cannot read it aloud. When I replace the original text with Lorem Ipsum and save it as a pdf, Acrobat is able to read it aloud.

I saved the files to dropbox.com :  Dropbox - pdf Read Aloud Problems

I have tried several different ways of working with the original text in an attempt to remove whatever bug it has, things like saving it as a .txt file. I've tried pasting the copy into email and sending to myself. None of my troubleshooting efforts have worked.

It's looking like I may have to re-type much of the text in my Indesign file. Seven of 16 pages have this problem.

Alex

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Ok, this is getting weirder and weirder. My colleague had the idea to export the problem text from Indesign as a jpg and then run it through an online OCR app. at Free Online OCR - convert scanned PDF and images to Word, JPEG to Word..

I copied the regenerated text right out of the html output back into Indesign and exported to pdf. The read aloud function would still not work. When I removed the the regenerated text and filled the text box with placeholder text and re-exported to pdf, the read aloud function worked.

[Dave__M]

I had a scenario once where the read aloud functionality was being held up by a single character.  If I remember correctly, it was a lower case "f" that had somehow morphed into a character that looked like a standard "f", but in facts was from a different language set, I think. If the text was every processed through OCR, this can happen.  I stared at the text for a long time until I noticed that the one "f" looked a tiny bit different than all the rest.  Might be worth a close inspection.

My best,

Dave

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Yes, through a process of elimination, there does seem to be a spot in the text where it fails, but there isn't anything obvious about that spot, all of the characters seem to be appropriate to the text. But it's an interesting idea. I double-checked the language settings in Word and ran it through a spell checker and re-saved the text without any styling (normal), which should've stripped out any exotic characters, I think.

I've tried a number of different ways to clear the bug, including saving the copy as plain text, pasting it into an email and sending to myself. I've even tried saving it as an image and running it through OCR, but nothing has worked so far.

When I import the text into an new Indesign doc and export to pdf, Read Aloud won't work. When I replace the text in InDesign with placeholder text and re-export to pdf, Read Aloud works.

[Dave__M]

I routinely paste copied text into notepad (Win/PC) in order to weed out stray foreign or mis-formatted characters - especially if I don't know the original document's origin.  If there is an exact point that it always hangs, I'd try to retype that text portion in your source doc. 

My best,

Dave

[AlexBerryLibrary]

Ok, I think I have found a work around.

The problem seemed to be with the original copy in a Word doc. I tried a number of different ways to clear the bug, (see above), but nothing was working.

I just now tried copying the problem text from the Word doc into a new Text Wrangler file and saving as a .txt file. When I placed the Text Wrangler txt file into the Indesign layout and exported it to pdf, Acrobat was at long last able to Read Aloud the text.

Earlier I had tried cutting and pasting the problematic blurb from Word into Text Edit and saving it as a .txt file, but it didn't work.

So .. on to revising my InDesign file ..

[Dave__M]

Great!  Glad the work-around works!

My best,

Dave

[AlexBerryLibrary · Accepted solution]

Below is a clearer explanation of what's happening ..

18. Re: I am using Adobe 11.0.10 and wish to use The READ OUT LOUD option. I activated it and clicked "r...

L Gryfe  21-Feb-2016 5:55 PM (in response to racn117420)

I don't have a solution per se, but I do think I might have isolated the problem and could provide a workaround. It appears that (on a Mac) characters that use the option key to generate them - such as en dashes (option-hyphen), ellipses (...), apostrophes, etc. - seem to break the Read Out Loud feature. If you change the en dash to a regular hyphen, the ellipsis to three periods, and the proper typographic apostrophe to a prime (i.e. turn off smart quotes), then Read Out Loud seems to work. I wish there were a fix for this. I don't like compromising proper typographic conventions to accommodate an accessible version.