Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

Check and correct reading order

You can quickly check the reading order of tagged PDFs by using the TouchUp Reading Order tool. You can also use this tool to add alternate text to images and correct many types of tagging problems that are outlined in the report that Acrobat generates when you add tags to a PDF.

Reading-order problems are readily apparent when you use the TouchUp Reading Order tool. Each section of contiguous page content appears as a separate highlighted region and is numbered according to its placement in the reading order. Within each region, text is ordered left to right and top to bottom. (You can change this order in the TouchUp preferences.) If a single highlighted region contains two columns of text or text that won’t flow normally, divide the region into parts that can be reordered. Because highlighted regions are rectangular, they may overlap somewhat, especially if their page content is irregularly shaped. Unless page content overlaps or is contained within two highlighted regions, no reading order problem is indicated. Page content should belong to no more than one highlighted region.

You can change the reading order of the highlighted regions by moving an item in the Order tab or by dragging it on the page in the document pane. By reordering highlighted regions on the page, you can make a figure and caption read at the specific point that they are referenced in the text. By changing the order of a highlighted region, you effectively change the reading order of that item without changing the actual appearance of the PDF.

Check reading order with the TouchUp Reading Order tool

  1. Select the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
  2. In the TouchUp Reading Order dialog box, select Show Page Content Order.
    Note: If highlighted regions don’t appear in the document pane, the document doesn’t contain tags.
  3. Optionally, do any of the following:

    • To specify a highlight color, click the color swatch, and then click the color you want.

    • To highlight tables and figures, and to view alternate text for figures, select Show Tables And Figures.

  4. Check the reading order of text within each highlighted region.
    Zooming in can make this step easier.
  5. Check the numbered order of all highlighted regions. If consecutive, numbered regions don’t follow one another, reorder them in the Order tab.
  6. Click Show Order Panel, and then select each content entry (in square brackets [ ]) in the Order tab to highlight that content region in the document pane. Use this method to find numbered regions that you can’t see or locate on the page.

Change the reading order in the Order tab

  1. Select the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
  2. In the TouchUp Reading Order dialog box, click Show Order Panel.
  3. In the Order tab, navigate to view a list of highlighted regions that appear in the document pane.
  4. In the Order tab, drag the tag for a highlighted region to the location you want. As you drag, a line appears to show potential locations. After you drag an item to a new location, the highlighted regions are renumbered to show the new reading order. You can select and move multiple, adjacent regions.

Change the reading order by dragging on the page

  1. Select the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
  2. In the TouchUp Reading Order dialog box, select Show Page Content Order.
  3. In the document pane, place the pointer over the number for the highlighted region you want to move, and drag it to where you want it to be read. The text-insertion pointer shows target locations within the text.

    When you release the highlighted region, the location of the text-insertion pointer becomes the dividing line as the underlying highlighted region is split into two new highlighted regions. All highlighted regions are renumbered to show the new reading order.