Adobe InDesign version: 2019 CC

We are currently trying to establish the best workflow in creating fully accessible PDF's for screen readers and I believe we have come across a bug in the communication between InDesign and Acrobat.

Quick summary:

H1 elements on multiple lines read as separate elements unless assigned manually in Acrobat
The Structure and Article order does not transfer to the PDF

To explain the issue clearly I have numbered the images in the process order.

1. Image: 1 InDesign Accessibility setup.png
2. I have setup ‘paragraph styles’ and used the correct ‘Export Tagging’ tags for each style.
3. I have added the content I want to be read in Articles and put them in the correct order
4. I have created tags and assigned all the content correctly
5. I have reordered the ‘Structure’ to be in the reading order too

Please note - the order of the ‘Structure’ and or ‘Articles’ does not transfer to Acrobat (after selecting the correct export settings.

1. Image: 2 Interactive PDF with options selected.png
   This image shows I have selected Interactive PDF and selected:
   ‘Create tagged PDF’
   ‘Use structure for Tab Order’

2. Image: 3 Initial PDF review - incorrect content order.png
   You can see the reading order does not match either the ‘Article’ or ‘Structure’ order from InDesign which I have set up.

You can also see that the elements are ‘Spans’ not H1, H2 and P tags.

1. Image: 4 Initial PDF review - Tag number ordering incorrect.png
   You can see the screen readers reading order by the numbers shown on this image which again does not match the order I set up in InDesign.

2. 5 Initial PDF review - tag h1 splitting.png
   The tag order doesn’t match the structure setup in InDesign
   Also there is another bug when reading H1 tags on multiple lines.

You can see how the H1 tag is broken by 4 lines. This has been tested and you have to swipe 4 times to listen to the full H1 header.

1. 6 Initial PDF review - tag h1 splitting - fix by order assigning.png In Acrobat I have then gone into the reading order and manually set the main header to a H1 tag. This then groups the text in the tag order window and fixes the issue of it being multilines. You can then also see the tag has changed from Span to H1.

The same thing needs to be done for the other multi layered heading tags.

I hope this is clear enough to understand.