What is a pdf tagged file

If the table contains rows that span two or more columns, set ColSpan and RowSpan attributes for these rows in the tag structure. This section describes the standard tag types that apply to tagged PDFs. These standard tags provide assistive software and devices with semantic and structural elements to use to interpret document structure and present content in a useful manner.

The PDF tags architecture is extensible, so any PDF document can contain any tag set that an authoring application decides to use. Custom tags that you define such as tag names generated from paragraph styles of an authoring application need a role map.

The role map matches each custom tag to a standard tag here. When assistive software encounters a custom tag, the software can check this role map and properly interpret the tags. Tagging PDFs by using one of the methods described here generally produces a correct role map for the document.

The standard Adobe element tag types are available in the New Tag dialog box. Adobe strongly encourages using these tag types because they provide the best results when tagged content is converted to a different format. Block-level elements are page elements that consist of text laid out in paragraph-like forms. Such elements are further classified as container elements, heading and paragraph elements, label and list elements, special text elements, and table elements.

Container elements are the highest level of element and provide hierarchical grouping for other block-level elements. Part element. A large division of a document; may group smaller units of content together, such as division elements, article elements, or section elements. Section element. Heading and paragraph elements are paragraph-like, block-level elements that include specific level heading and generic paragraph P tags. A heading H element should appear as the first child of any higher-level division.

List element. Any sequence of items of similar meaning or other relevance; immediate child elements should be list item elements. List item element. Any one member of a list; may have a label element optional and a list body element required as a child. Label element. A bullet, name, or number that identifies and distinguishes an element from others in the same list. Block quote element. One or more paragraphs of text attributed to someone other than the author of the immediate surrounding text.

Index element. A sequence of entries that contain identifying text and reference elements that point out the occurrence of the text in the main body of the document. Table of contents element. An element that contains a structured list of items and labels identifying those items; has its own discrete hierarchy. Table of contents item element.

An item contained in a list associated with a table of contents element. Table element. A two-dimensional arrangement of data or text cells that contains table row elements as child elements and may have a caption element as its first or last child element.

Table row element. One row of headings or data in a table; may contain table header cell elements and table data cell elements. Table header cell element.

A table cell that contains header text or data describing one or more rows or columns of a table. Inline-level elements identify a span of text that has specific formatting or behavior. They are differentiated from block-level elements.

Inline-level elements may be contained in or contain block-level elements. Quote entry element. An inline portion of text that is attributed to someone other than the author of the text surrounding it; different from a block quote, which is a whole paragraph or multiple paragraphs, as opposed to inline text.

Span entry element. Any inline segment of text; commonly used to delimit text that is associated with a set of styling properties. Similar to inline-level elements, special inline-level elements describe an inline portion of text that has special formatting or behavior.

Link entry element. A hyperlink that is embedded within a document. The target can be in the same document, in another PDF document, or on a website. Note entry element. Explanatory text or documentation, such as a footnote or endnote, that is referred to in the main body of text.

Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. User Guide Cancel. Correct reflow problems with the Content panel. Expand the document name to view pages and objects. Move a container or object by selecting it and doing one of the following:. Drag it to the location you want.

Content panel options. Adds a container object at the end of the selected page or container. Cuts and copies the selected object not the related page content. PDF files contain many things. At a minimum, each contains the text, fonts, graphics, bookmarks, links, form fields and other elements of content that go to make up the electronic document "package" that is a PDF. The order in both temporal and spatial senses of these contents, and why that order should matter to you, isn't obvious, but it is nonetheless important to understand.

What is content order? There are four basic ways in which the contents of any given PDF page may be ordered for the purpose of expression to a user. The first two are familiar to most users: screen and print. In both cases, the concept of "content order" is meaningful only in terms of the so-called "z-order" - which item is "in front" of or "behind" which other items appearing at that same location on the page. For example, to correctly display a shaded box containing text, the correct z-order places the text "in front of" the shading.

If the text appears "behind" the shading, it would disappear on screen and in print — likely not the desired effect. Getting the z-order right, however, says nothing about the linear ordering of the characters, words, lines and paragraphs of the text — that is an entirely different issue. Up until version 5 of Adobe Acrobat, z-order was the only type of content order that could be applied to PDF-based content. Text and graphics appeared on the screen in an order that best supported accurate display and printing, and that was enough.

In Acrobat 5, Adobe Systems began to respond to the other two key considerations for content expression. The third type of content order - reading order - denotes the linear ordering of the letters and words of the text.

Without the concept of reading order, a PDF file has literally no idea which letter or word precedes another letter or word on the page. All it knows is which z-order to use for the objects appearing at a given coordinate on the page. TouchUp Reading Order. Click image to enlarge. With reading order, the characters on the page are understood to have a linear sequence of appearance quite apart from z-order.

When the reading order is correct, it becomes possible to accommodate disabled users who require a simple stream of text, or to use with PDAs and other mobile devices that reflow content to display a wide-formatted page on a small, narrow screen. The fourth type of content order, logical, is an extension of the reading order concept. Logical order makes it possible to identify the relationships between blocks of content, each of which contains text in correct reading order.

Logical order allows you to introduce concepts such as tables, lists and headings, as well as provide alternate text for images, descriptive text for links and form fields, and so on. A PDF file that includes logical order has been "tagged;" however, the fact that tags exist in a given PDF is itself no indication that the logical order is valid, or even close to valid.

A PDF document, by contrast, is a single file containing from one page to thousands or millions of pages of text, graphics, annotations and other content. What does WCAG say? Consistency is key Headings allow AT users to move between important subjects in a document. Future-proof documents PDF 2. Klaas Posselt. News Events Resources. Communities Members About us. First name. Last Name. Email address I have read and agree to the Privacy Policy.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Whichever method you use to tag the PDF, use Acrobat to touch up the tagging and reading order for complex page layouts or unusual page elements.

It may incorrectly tag all of these elements as figures. Similarly, this command may erroneously tag graphical characters within text , such as drop caps, as figures instead of including them in the tag that represents the text block.

Such errors can clutter the tag tree and complicate the reading order that assistive technology relies on. If you tag a document from within Acrobat, the application generates an error report after it completes the tagging process.

Use this report as a guide to repair tagging problems. For example, if the web page relies on tables for its layout design, the HTML code for the table may not flow in the same logical reading order as a tagged PDF would require, even though the HTML code is sufficiently structured to display all the elements correctly in a browser. Depending on the complexity of the web page, you can do extensive repairs in Acrobat Pro by using the Reading Order tool or editing the tag tree in Acrobat.

For more information, see the guidelines on the W3C website. Creating tags in the authoring application generally provides better results than adding tags in Acrobat. For more information about creating accessible PDFs, see www.

You can combine multiple files from different applications in one operation to create a single PDF. For example, you can combine word-processing files with slide presentations, spreadsheets, and web pages. If you start with a mix of tagged and untagged PDFs, tag the untagged files before proceeding. When you insert, replace, or delete pages, Acrobat accepts existing tags into the tag tree of the consolidated PDF in the following manner:. When you insert pages into a PDF, Acrobat adds the tags if any for the new pages to the end of the tag tree.

This order occurs even if you insert the new pages at the beginning or the middle of the document. When you replace pages in a PDF, Acrobat adds the tags if any from the incoming pages to the end of the tag tree.

This order occurs even if you replace pages at the beginning or the middle of the document. Acrobat retains the tags if any for the replaced pages.

Pages whose tags are out of order in the logical structure tree can cause problems for screen readers. Screen readers read tags in sequence down the tree, and possibly do not reach the tags for an inserted page until the end of the tree. To fix this problem, use Acrobat Pro to rearrange the tag tree.

Place large groups of tags in the same reading order as the pages themselves. To avoid this step, plan on inserting pages to the end of a PDF, building the document from front to back in sequence. This approach places the tags for the content after the tags for the title page. Essentially, they are large pieces of empty tag tree sections. These redundant tags increase the file size of the document, slow down screen readers, and can cause screen readers to give confusing results.