Thank you for raising these accessibility issues. The post mentions about the following six bugs being introduced with the update that went live on September 14, 2021
1: Alt-Text from MS Word is not converting into the PDF. Instead, it is dropped and gibberish code is inserted
2: Every cell border on every table cell is being tagged as <P>PathPathPathPath
3: The underline on Hyperlinks should be tagged as artifacts
4: Borders and background shadings on Text Boxes are being tagged as a combination of <Figure>s and PathPathPath
5: Paragraph borders and shadings: same deal as #4 above.Per the PDF/UA-1 standard, they are visually decorative and should be artifacted
6: Dragging and dropping elements in both the Tag and Order panels is now broken.
Would like to mention that out of these, #1 and #6 were introduced with the Sep 14 update and remaining (#2, #3, #4 & #5) were present even in the Acrobat version prior to Sep 14 update. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by these issues.
Issue #1 and #6 were the regressions introduced with Sept 14th update and hence were fixed on priority with Sept 29th Update (Release Notes for September 29, 2021). With the latest version (22.001.20085) of Acrobat Pro DC released on March 7th (Release Notes for March 07, 2022), issues #2 and #3 have also been fixed. Issues #4 and #5 have been partially fixed so that PathPathPath tags won’t be part of the tag tree anymore. The remaining issue for #4 and # 5 (Borders and background shadings on Text Boxes / paragraphs are being tagged as <Figure>s) have already been added to our product backlog and those will be prioritized to be fixed in coming releases.
You can use the menu item Help → Check for Updates… to get the latest version of Acrobat Pro DC containing these fixes. Please try out the fixes and share the feedback as that will help us make our applications better from accessibility perspective.
Thanks & Regards
Tanvi Rastogi
Hi,
Thank you for raising these accessibility issues. The post mentions about the following six bugs being introduced with the update that went live on September 14, 2021
1: Alt-Text from MS Word is not converting into the PDF. Instead, it is dropped and gibberish code is inserted
2: Every cell border on every table cell is being tagged as <P>PathPathPathPath
3: The underline on Hyperlinks should be tagged as artifacts
4: Borders and background shadings on Text Boxes are being tagged as a combination of <Figure>s and PathPathPath
5: Paragraph borders and shadings: same deal as #4 above.Per the PDF/UA-1 standard, they are visually decorative and should be artifacted
6: Dragging and dropping elements in both the Tag and Order panels is now broken.
Would like to mention that out of these, #1 and #6 were introduced with the Sep 14 update and remaining (#2, #3, #4 & #5)…
Thank you for your response and the updates regarding the accessibility issues introduced in the September 2021 Acrobat and PDF Maker update. While I appreciate that some issues, such as the Alt-Text and drag-and-drop functionality, were addressed with subsequent releases, several critical problems remain unresolved. Specifically, the improper tagging of table borders as “PathPathPath” and the incorrect tagging of borders and background shadings as <Figure>s or “PathPathPath” are still causing accessibility failures. These issues violate PDF/UA-1 standards and continue to create significant challenges for users who rely on Acrobat for making legally compliant accessible PDFs, particularly in government and academic sectors.
Additionally, the inability to revert to a previous version of PDF Maker after the update is a serious concern. This issue limits the flexibility for users who need a stable and reliable version to maintain accessibility standards. Given the wide-reaching impact of these problems, I urge Adobe to prioritize resolving these remaining bugs in future releases. Addressing these concerns will ensure that users can confidently produce fully accessible PDFs in line with legal and regulatory requirements. Thank you for your continued efforts, and I look forward to seeing these critical issues resolved soon.
Hi Tanvi,
Thank you for your response and the updates regarding the accessibility issues introduced in the September 2021 Acrobat and PDF Maker update. While I appreciate that some issues, such as the Alt-Text and drag-and-drop functionality, were addressed with subsequent releases, several critical problems remain unresolved. Specifically, the improper tagging of table borders as “PathPathPath” and the incorrect tagging of borders and background shadings as <Figure>s or “PathPathPath” are still causing accessibility failures. These issues violate PDF/UA-1 standards and continue to create significant challenges for users who rely on Acrobat for making legally compliant accessible PDFs, particularly in government and academic sectors.
Additionally, the inability to revert to a previous version of PDF Maker after the update is a serious concern. This issue limits the flexibility for users who need a stable and reliable version to maintain accessibility standards. Given the wide-reaching impact of these problems, I urge Adobe to prioritize resolving these remaining bugs in future releases. Addressing these concerns will ensure that users can confidently produce fully accessible PDFs in line with legal and regulatory requirements. Thank you for your continued efforts, and I look forward to seeing these critical issues resolved soon.