Adobe Acrobat 9 PRO Extended - Manual (Page 309)

303 USING ACROBAT 9 PRO EXTENDED
Accessibility, tags, and reflow
Last updated 9/30/2011
Important: This option doesn’t necessarily indicate that the PDF conforms to PDF guidelines and should be used
judiciously.
Highlight Content When selected, causes highlights to appear around content in the document pane when you select
the related tag in the Tags tab.
Show Metadata Opens a read-only dialog box that contains reference information about the selected tag.
Properties Opens the TouchUp Properties dialog box.
Add alternate text and supplementary information to tags
Some tagged PDFs might not contain all the information necessary to make the document contents fully accessible.
For example, if you want to make a document available to a screen reader, the PDF should contain alternate text for
figures, language properties for portions of the text that use a different language than the default language for the
document, and expansion text for abbreviations. Designating the appropriate language for different text elements
ensures that the correct characters are used when you repurpose the document and that it is spell-checked with the
correct dictionary.
You can add alternate text and multiple languages to a tag from the Tags tab. (If only one language is required, choose
the language with File > Properties instead.) You can also add alternate text by using the TouchUp Reading Order tool.
Note: Keep alternate text descriptions as concise as possible.
Add alternate text to links
Screen readers can read the URLs of web links out loud, but adding meaningful alternate text to links can help users
immensely. For example, by adding alternate text you can have a screen reader tell a user to “go to the Acrobat
accessibility page of adobe.com” rather than “go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/solutionsacc.html.”
You add alternate text to the tag of a link.
Note: You must add alternate text only to tags that don’t have child tags. Adding alternate text to a parent tag prevents
a screen reader from reading any of that tag’s child tags.
1 In the tag tree, select the tag for the link and choose Options > Properties.
2 In the TouchUp Properties dialog box, select the Tag tab.
3 Type alternate text for the link, and click Close.
Add alternate text for a figure
1 Choose View > Navigation Panels > Tags.
2 Expand the logical structure tree to find and select the tag element for the image.
To find a tag more easily, use the TouchUp Reading Order tool to select the figure—or text near the figure—in the
document pane, and then choose Find Tag From Selection from the Options menu in the Tags tab.
3 Choose Highlight Content from the Options menu in the Tags tab to see a highlighted area in the document that
corresponds to the tag.
4 Choose Properties from the Options menu in the Tags tab.
5 In the TouchUp Properties dialog box, click the Tag tab.
6 For Alternate Text, type text that describes the figure.