Adobe acrobat content extraction for accessibility

Extract all PDF document elements including text, tables, and images within a structured JSON file to enable a variety of downstream solutions. Classify text objects such as headings, lists, footnotes, and paragraphs that may span multiple columns or pages. Capture text fonts and styles, positioning, and the natural reading order of all objects. Adobe Sensei AI technology delivers highly accurate data extraction across a broad range of document types — both native and scanned PDFs — without requiring custom ML templates or model training.

Extract data from complex tables including cell data, column and row headers, and table properties for use in machine learning models, analysis, or storage. Republish the content in PDF documents across different media, languages, and formats by extracting not just data but also structural context, text and table formatting, and reading order.

Advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence parse complex document content for reuse in a variety of critical downstream processes. The technology enables a rich understanding of documents, such as the identification of elements, including position and connections relative to other elements.

In addition, it can determine reading order. Specifying the document language in a PDF enables some screen readers to switch to the appropriate language. Some PDF authors restrict users from printing, copying, extracting, adding comments, or editing text. The text of an accessible PDF must be available to a screen reader. For more information about PDF accessibility, see www. PDF tags indicate document structure: which text is a heading, which content makes up a section, which text is a bookmark, and so on.

A logical structure tree of tags represents the organizational structure of the document. Therefore, tags indicate the reading order and improve navigation, particularly for long, complex documents without changing the PDF appearance. Assistive software determines how to present and interpret the content of the document by using the logical structure tree. Most assistive software depends on document structure tags to determine the appropriate reading order of text. Document structure tags let assistive software convey the meaning of images and other content in an alternate format, such as sound.

An untagged document does not have structure information, and Acrobat must infer a structure based on the Reading Order preference setting. This situation often results in page items being read in the wrong order or not at all.

Reflowing a document for viewing on the small screen of a mobile device relies on these same document structure tags. Often, Acrobat tags PDFs when you create them. In Acrobat Pro , the logical structure tree appears on the Tags panel. It shows document content as page elements nested at various levels. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. User Guide Cancel.

Features for accessible reading of PDFs. Preferences and commands to optimize output for assistive software and devices, such as saving as accessible text for a braille printer Preferences and commands to make navigation of PDFs more accessible, such as automatic scrolling and opening PDFs to the last page read Accessibility Setup Assistant for easy setting of most preferences related to accessibility Keyboard alternates to mouse actions Reflow capability to display PDF text in large type and to temporarily present a multicolumn PDF in a single, easy-to-read column.

Read Out Loud text-to-speech conversion Support for screen readers and screen magnifiers. Features for creating accessible PDFs. Opens the Accessibility Checker Options dialog box, so you can select which checks are performed. A document author can specify that no part of an accessible PDF is to be copied, printed, extracted, commented on, or edited.

This setting could interfere with a screen reader's ability to read the document, because screen readers must be able to copy or extract the document's text to convert it to speech. This flag reports whether it's necessary to turn on the security settings that allow accessibility. To fix the rule automatically, select Accessibility Permission Flag on the Accessibility Checker panel. Then, choose Fix from the Options menu. Choose No Security from the Security Method drop-down list.

Click OK and close the Document Properties dialog box. If your assistive technology product is registered with Adobe as a Trusted Agent, you can read PDFs that might be inaccessible to another assistive technology product.

Acrobat recognizes when a screen reader or other product is a Trusted Agent and overrides security settings that would typically limit access to the content for accessibility purposes. However, the security settings remain in effect for all other purposes, such as to prevent printing, copying, extracting, commenting, or editing text.

See the related WCAG section: 1. Reports whether the document contains non-text content that is not accessible. If the document appears to contain text, but doesn't contain fonts, it could be an image-only PDF file. Or, to fix this rule check manually, use OCR to recognize text in scanned images:. Select the pages you want to process, the document language, and then click Recognize Text. Non-text content A.

Acrobat automatically adds tags to the PDF. Verify this rule check manually. Make sure that the reading order displayed in the Tags panel coincides with the logical reading order of the document.

Setting the document language in a PDF enables some screen readers to switch to the appropriate language. This check determines whether the primary text language for the PDF is specified.

If the check fails, set the language. To set the language automatically, select Primary Language in the Accessibility Checker tab, and then choose Fix from the Options menu. To fix the title automatically, select Title in the Accessibility Checker tab, and choose Fix from the Options menu.

Enter the document title in the Description dialog box deselect Leave As Is , if necessary. See the related WCAG section: 2. This check fails when the document has 21 or more pages, but doesn't have bookmarks that parallel the document structure. To add bookmarks to the document, select Bookmarks on the Accessibility Checker panel, and choose Fix from the Options menu.

In the Structure Elements dialog box, select the elements that you want to use as bookmarks, and click OK. You can also access the Structure Elements dialog box by clicking the Options menu on the Bookmark tab and selecting the New Bookmarks From Structure command. See the related WCAG sections: 2. When this check fails, it's possible that the document contains content that isn't accessible to people who are color-blind.

To fix this issue, make sure that the document's content adheres to the guidelines outlined in WCAG section 1. Or, include a recommendation that the PDF viewer use high-contrast colors:.

Choose the color combination that you want from the drop-down list, and then click OK. This check reports whether all content in the document is tagged. Make sure that all content in the document is either included in the Tags tree, or marked as an artifact.

See the related WCAG sections: 1. This rule checks whether all annotations are tagged. Make sure that annotations such as comments and editorial marks such as insert and highlight are either included in the Tags tree or marked as artifacts. To have Acrobat assign tags automatically to annotations as they're created, choose Tag Annotations from the Options menu on the Tags panel.

Because tabs are often used to navigate a PDF, it's necessary that the tab order parallels the document structure. To fix the tab order automatically, select Tab Order on the Accessibility Checker panel, and choose Fix from the Options menu.

Click the Page Thumbnails panel on the navigation pane. Click a page thumbnail, and then choose Page Properties from the Options menu. In the Page Properties dialog box, choose Tab Order. Specifying the encoding helps PDF viewers' present users with readable text. However, some character-encoding issues aren't repairable within Acrobat. This rule checks whether all multimedia objects are tagged. Make sure that content is either included in the Tags tree or marked as an artifact.

Then, select Create Artifact from the context menu. Select the content, and then apply tags as necessary. Assign tags using the Tags panel.

Elements that make the screen flicker, such as animations and scripts, can cause seizures in individuals who have photosensitive epilepsy. These elements can also be difficult to see when the screen is magnified. If the Screen Flicker rule fails, manually remove or modify the script or content that causes screen flicker. See these related WCAG sections: 1. Level A. Content cannot be script-dependent unless both content and functionality are accessible to assistive technologies.

Make sure that scripting doesn't interfere with keyboard navigation or prevent the use of any input device. Check the scripts manually. Remove or modify any script or content that compromises accessibility. Level A , 4. This rule check applies to documents that contain forms with JavaScript. If the rule check fails, make sure that the page does not require timed responses. Edit or remove scripts that impose timely user response so that users have enough time to read and use the content.

The best way to create accessible links is with the Create Link command, which adds all three links that screen readers require to recognize a link.

Make sure that navigation links are not repetitive and that there is a way for users to skip over repetitive links. If this rule check fails, check navigation links manually and verify that the content does not have too many identical links. Also, provide a way for users to skip over items that appear multiple times. For example, if the same links appear on each page of the document, also include a "Skip navigation" link.

In an accessible PDF, all form fields are tagged and are a part of the document structure. In addition, you can use the tool tip form filed property to provide the user with information or to provide instructions. Level A , 3. Screen readers don't read the alternate text for nested elements. Therefore, don't apply alternate text to nested elements. Make sure that alternate text is always an alternate representation for content on the page.

If an element has alternate text, but does not contain any page content, there is no way to determine which page it is on. If the Screen Reader Option in the Reading preferences is not set to read the entire document, then screen readers never read the alternate text. Alternate text can't hide an annotation. If an annotation is nested under a parent element with alternate text, then screen readers don't see it. This report checks for content, other than figures, that requires alternate text such as multimedia, annotation, or 3D model.

If an element has alternate text but does not contain any page content, there is no way to determine which page it is on.