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Use the Articles tab to designate the reading order in a PDF

When creating an accessible PDF, InDesign should use the Articles Tab rather than the Layers Panel to structure the Reading Order. It reads properly but once you check the accessibility, the "Reading Order" panel shows a MESS. It's based on the Layers Panel which is madness to try and re-structure when creating a large form with hundreds of form fields. The Articles Panel is needed to set the tab order anyway. This would make the most sense to me.

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Andrew Sober shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Tina commented  ·   ·  Report

    For accessible PDFs, the Layers and Articles panels must both be set correctly to ensure the exported PDF has the correct reading order and tag order across different screen readers.

    Because different screen readers may interpret reading order differently, setting both the Layers and Articles panels correctly helps create a more consistent experience.

    Layers should be ordered from bottom to top, and Articles should be ordered from top to bottom. Make sure “Use for Tagging Order in Tagged PDF” is turned on in the Articles panel.

    “Create Tagged PDF” must also be selected when exporting the PDF. I created a preset for accessible PDFs to ensure the correct export settings are applied.

  • Therese Johannesson commented  ·   ·  Report

    I'ts very time consuming to fix the tagg order when you have not produced a In-Design document yourself. If the Article Tab could be used for setting the order in the In-Design document it would save me a lot of hours...

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've been fighting with this "feature" for years and can't believe it's still as antiquated as it is. Adobe, you really need to at LEAST make the tab order box bigger so it's easier to organize complex forms.

  • Heide commented  ·   ·  Report

    Agreed! I just spent hours setting up articles with tagged items in Reading Order and none of it transferred into the PDF, even after selecting "Use for tagging order in tagged PDF" for all the articles.

  • Terry Veiga commented  ·   ·  Report

    Add my vote to this. I got stuck in The Matrix trying to use a convoluted mix of the Structure, Articles and Layers panels, and STILL had to settle for a McGyver-like fix in Acrobat. Spent loads of time for so little return and will wrestle with the same process all over again on the next project. :-(

Adobe InDesign: Feature Requests: PDF Export

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