Tagged Structure Breaks on Content Edit Question

[yn]

Good morning,

I'm hoping someone can shed some light here and point me in the right direction. Basically, I've noticed that if I use the Acrobat Pro DC Text Touch-Up tool to modify something such as a font header color that is not compliant, or to add an underscore to a hyperlink for visual reference of the link, then the Tags structure breaks nearly all of the paragraph, header, and link tags within that page(s) and randomly places some of those elements both out of order and even onto previous pages.

What was a structured page is suddenly chaos!

Can someone explain what is happening here? Or better, a work-around for such edits from within that Tags Panel instead of the Text Touch-Up tool Panel?

Ultimately, I need to change header colors for contrast compliance and add underscores to links that currently do not have them for  visual reference of that link. It appears doing so breaks structure so that one edit becomes 30 or more, plus the risk of human error not correctly restructuring the page.

Thanks in advance for your guidance,

- noel

[Chad Chelius]

I just tested this and I see what you mean. The original tag structure gets all whacked out. It seems like most of the content on the page gets moved into a single tag and then a bunch of blank tags gets created. I've not discovered this before but then again, I tend to not edit the PDF in Acrobat instead making the edits in the source application. It's definitely a problem and I'd encourage you to file a bug and Share your feedback on Acrobat DC Unfortunately, I don't have a good solution for you other than retagging the page manually using the Reading Order panel.

[yn]

Chad,

My apologies for such a delay in reply. Thank you for your comment and suggestion to file a bug report.

I ended up manually adjusting the tags, for a while, but then decided to return to the source Word document to make the necessary edits. I did this after creating a PAC 2 error that I could find no documentation on. I did learn a lot about the tag structure in Acrobat Pro doing that (and about myself, and my limits!), so that was good I guess. Still very scary, not knowing much about the tag panel or logic. I know more now than I did at least.

Thanks again for the reply.

Off topic, but how do you handle table borders? Right now, exporting a Word or InDesign table with stroke/borders converts each border edge (and cell shading) to an untagged object once in Acrobat Pro. I manually select each to convert to background, but that is tedious to say the least. I will post this as a formal question later today, but was curious what your thoughts were in the meantime.

Anyway, to anyone reading for the original post question, I think it's best to just start over in the source document. My experience last week demonstrated that using Acrobat Pro Text Touch Up Tool will always break your tag/read order. In addition to resorting your tags, you will inadvertently create a single full-page tag in which all page content will be combined. You will have to manually select each paragraph, link, or heading one at a time and tag it as a paragraph, link, or heading. For the most part this was reasonable to avoid going back to the source, but once you encounter a hyperlink then new errors begin to creep in. Some of which I could find no documentation on. Also, if your headers or paragraphs are indented you may run into very awkward alignment issues. In my case, several headers lost their tabbing locations after just changing their font colors. The workaround was to set to left-justify and then manually tab the header text over to approximately where it should be. This was ugly.

Ultimately, for the amount of time I spent troubleshooting individual fixes, applying those fixes, and then troubleshooting issues that came out as a result of those fixes was considerably more than I would have spent had I just started over with the source document. Lesson learned: do it right the first time, eh?

I hope this helps someone else out there.

[Chad Chelius]

Yes the PAC 3 checker (more specifically PDF/UA) requires that all those untagged paths from tables and other artwork be artifacted. You can do it manually, but some documents have ridiculous amounts of paths (docs with tons of tables etc) which makes manually tagging a nightmare. There are 3rd party tools out there that make this much easier. Commonlook is one of them. I prefer to use PDFAPilot by Callas software. It allows you to artifact all of those untagged paths automatically and it's reasonably priced.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Sorry for chiming in so late, but I missed this discussion earlier.

RE: editing content:

This is a known bug in Acrobat: if you edit the content in any way — add/delete text or graphics, add the underlines you described, change the color, A N Y change to the content — the tag structure will be blown.

And it can corrupt the tag tree at any place in the document, not necessarily where the change was made, so you must review the tag tree for the entire document.

This has been a problem for many versions. Please file a request to correct this problem at https://acrobat.uservoice.com/

Until it's fixed, remember...

Never edit the content of a tagged PDF.

Always go back to the source file and correct the problem there.

[yn]

I have learned so much more about this process through trial and error and I'm finding that I really enjoy this type of change in work. My problem is that my knowledge has mostly been through discovery. May I ask what your backgrounds are to know so much on compliance PDF techniques?

I am a designer by education and career but i want to learn. The problem is that i do not know where to go as most of what i find only teaches broad superficial topics. For example, a lesson on compliant tables may only have you set a cell to data or header and that's it. There may be no mention of column/row span and how that might affect text-to-speech read order. Most of what I've found only scratches the surface.

So, aside from discovery and trial and error, where should I turn to for more detailed and thorough sources of education? Do you recommend a course? A book? Any certifications?

Thank you in advance, and for your comments to date.

[Chad Chelius]

Truthfully, we have all learned by discovery. Bevi and I are both trainers and consultants in this space doing a lot of work for private and Federal/State agencies where accessibility is quite important. Bevi has written books on the topic (Bevi please add more details), and I have created video training on the topic through Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning. In this space you're always learning and there's always new techniques to benefit from. I hope this helps.