Re: PDF - Text Extraction File

It sounds like the PDFs in question do not contain any text content.
Likely, the maps are embedded image objects or drawn lines/shapes/objects.

The screen reader tried to extract the text from the PDF so it could read
it aloud — but it couldn’t access the text layer. This will occur with
a PDF that is a scanned image (no selectable text, just pictures of pages)
or does not contain any textual data.

For these files, one should provide at minimum a tag tree and description
via alt text attribute for the image(s) via Acrobat.

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/create-verify-pdf-accessibility.html

If you have the ability to modify the PDFs further, consider adding in more
textual details about the map(s), captions, summaries, legends, key points
of interest, etc., to make them more useable.

If these are hosted on your department website, you can also author a more
detailed text-based alternative and link alongside the associated file.

Here is an example guide on describing maps (there are many out there…
others in this forum may have more robust resources for you):

https://cds.coe.hawaii.edu/accessibility/lessons/describing-maps/




On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 7:39 AM Richter,Susan <Susan.Richter@nscc.ca> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
>
>
> This is my first time posting here so please advise if this isn’t the best
> group for this kind of assistance.
>
>
>
> I’ve discovered we have some PDFs on our site that when accessed via a
> screen reader this is the message read out: “This PDF is inaccessible.
> Couldn’t download text extraction files”. The PDF(s) in question are large
> campus maps.
>
>
>
> I’m not super familiar with creating accessible PDFs, but I’m trying to
> understand how a text extraction file is created and then attached to a PDF
> so when a user opens it on the page using a screen reader the text
> extraction file is available. Does it have to be a separate link on the
> page or is there some way to embed/tie it to the PDF itself that just
> triggers it when opened via a screen reader?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>
> *Susan Richter*
> Senior Web Interface Developer
> Digital Products & Experience
>
> Nova Scotia Community College
> Institute of Technology Campus
> Web: nscc.ca
> <http://www.nscc.ca/?utm_source=email-sig&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email%20signature%20link>
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