Adobe’s Latest Improvements to Creating Accessible PDFs

With Adobe Acrobat Pro DC you get continuous updates and access to the latest features. In our continuing journey at Adobe to make it easier to create accessible PDF, we have made some improvements in our August 2017 release that I am very excited about.

Updates to the Tags Panel

Two of the most exciting changes impact the Tag Tree and will save a lot of time when manually fixing the tags or reorganizing a document.

Retain the State of the Tag Tree

In the last release, we automatically expanded the Tag Tree when opening the Tags Panel. However, upon saving the document the Tag Tree would collapse back to the primary node. In this release, we have solved that issue. Not only does the Tag Tree view remain exactly as you set it but, focus is retained where you last placed it.

For those of you who regularly work with multi-page documents you can see the immediate value to this. No longer do you have to navigate back through the Tag Tree and try to find the location where you left off working on the document.

Auto-adjust the Tag Tree when Organizing Pages

Up until this release, when reorganizing the pages in a PDF document, the Tag Tree would become corrupt and you had to manually fix the tagging of the document. Now, when you use the Organize Pages tool to Extract, Replace, Insert, Delete, or Move a page the tags related to the content on that page will be maintained and appropriately handled in the Tag Tree sequence.

This means, for example, when you move page 10 of a document to page 3, the Tag Tree will automatically adjust and the tags for that page will be moved to the correct position in the Tag Tree (after page 2). Check it out. I’m sure you will be as pleasantly surprised as I am. I can’t even guess at the amount of time this will save in reorganizing documents.

Access the Table Editor from the Tag Tree

This last change, which impacts the Tags Panel, may be less significant than the two previous updates but will save you from navigating out of the Tags Panel to edit the tags for Tables.

Instead of going to the Order Panel and opening the Touch Up Reading Order (TURO) tool to access the Table Editor you can now go directly to the Table Editor from the Tag Tree. You will still use the Table Editor in the manner to which you have become accustomed. To do so

  1. Select the
    tag in the Tag Tree
  2. Either right click to open the context menu or go to the dropdown menu at the top of the Tags Panel
  3. Select Table Editor (you will notice that the Table is now in “edit” mode)
  4. Right click on the cell that needs fixing to open context menu
  5. You can now go to the Table Cell Properties to edit the table cell as you normally would.

Update to the TURO Table Editor tool

  1. We have made a couple of enhancement to the process of editing tables that just plain make life a lot easier when working with the Table Editor. My manual dexterity may not be the best, but I have frequently found it difficult to activate the Table Editor when in the TURO tool.
  2. Now, you don’t have to find the clickable “hot spot” within the table to activate the Table Editor. Clicking anywhere within the table will activate the Table Editor button in the TURO tool. Additionally, you can select the cell to edit by clicking anywhere within that cell. Personally, I’m finding this a much easier experience in working with tables.
  3. And lastly, it used to be that you would get bumped out of the Table Editor by clicking within the table. Because of the changes mentioned above, that is no longer true. You will only exit the Table Editor when selecting content on the page outside of the Table Editor.

In Closing

  1. I hope you find this update to Acrobat Pro DC as valuable, and frankly amazing, as I have. Please let us know if we are moving in the right direction. Your feedback helps us prioritize the work we are doing. Keep an eye for the next tip to help you more efficiently create accessible PDFs.