Reflow and Order panel can not guarantee the reading order

Name: Sébastien Delorme
Email: sdelorme@atalan.fr
Affiliation: Atalan
Document: TD
Item Number: PDF3
Part of Item: Examples
Comment Type: technical
Summary of Issue: Reflow and Order panel can not guarantee the reading order
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
Example 4: Checking the reading order using Reflow in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
Example 5: Checking the reading order using the Order panel in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

Theses two examples explain how checking the reading order with the reflow mode and the order panel.
But I encountered many problems with these features and the reader order.

The Order navigation panel in Acrobat Pro is designed for checking and correcting the reading order of tagged content on a page. However, in Acrobat Pro 10 (and previous versions), this tool is very difficult to use as it manages both the reading order of content and the order objects visually overlay each other on the page.

The numbering used on the Order navigation panel does not correspond to the reading order but to the order the different content layers on the page overlay each other. So, when you want to check the reading order of content by a screen reader, the displayed numbering may be inaccurate.

For example :
** Document 1 http://www.pdf-accessible.com/IMG/pdf/test-ordre-14.pdf
In this document : 
- reflow order is "ordre matus balatum belli"
- Order panel shows the order is "ordre matus balatum belli"
- and the reading order is well "ordre matus balatum belli"

** Document 2 http://www.pdf-accessible.com/IMG/pdf/test-ordre-15.pdf
In this document : 
- reflow order is "ordre matus balatum belli"
- Order panel shows the order is "ordre matus balatum belli"
- BUT the reading order is "balatum belli ordre matus"

So, it is disturbing to test the reading order with Order panel or reflow mode.
Because the reading order is only testable with certainty on the Tags panel.

I tried to explain this in a better way on AcceDe PDF manual (page 46) :
http://www.pdf-accessible.com/IMG/pdf/making-PDF-accessible-Acrobat.pdf

Proposed Change:
It is difficult to delete theses two examples becausein many cases the reading order, reflow mode and the Order panel will be the same.

But for example with inDesign documents it's could totally different.

I propose a new example 
"Checking the reading order using the Tags panel in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro"

Received on Friday, 29 July 2011 15:09:47 UTC