Provide the ability to set the reading order for screen readers

[AmyRoust]

There is no way currently to tell assistive technology what order it should read through items in a PDF layout. For example, I have a PDF that reads the text from a text box at the bottom of my layout before reading the title of the map or the alt text for the map. It would be lovely to have the option to set the reading order without having to modify the document in Acrobat Pro.

[AubriKinghorn]

This is kind of available. Right now the reading order for accessible PDFs is the same reading order as the items are listed in the Contents Pane for the layout. You can reorder the items there to change how they are read in the PDF. However, that order is also the drawing order of those items, so that may limit how you can order items while still getting the desired layout look. 

With this in mind, can you clarify more on how you would like this to work for your workflows? 

[AmyRoust]

This is good to know! I just tried it and it worked, so I will send a revised copy to our webmaster to upload.

Here is the use case that triggered my idea. The PDF in question is at https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/2295/Disease-Intervention-Specialist-Assignment-Areas-Ma.... (You can see the source page that links to it here: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/394/Disease-Intervention)

When I open that PDF in Edge and use "Read Aloud" the screen reader starts by reading the names of all 105 counties. Then it goes to the list of areas and phone numbers, then the title, then the revised date. When I realized that Edge was ignoring the alt text on my map, I put in a help desk ticket with Esri (Esri Case #03293363).

The support tech asked me to test the same PDF by using Adobe Acrobat Reader's screen reader (View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud, then Read this Page Only.) Using that tool, it read in this order:

1. KDHE logo's alt text
2. Revised date text
3. The title
4. Areas and contact names/phone numbers list
5. The map's alt text

My thought was that if I could tell it to read the title first, then the revision date, then the map's alt text, and finally the contact information, that would be the best experience for someone trying to get information from that PDF using a screen reader.

Reordering the drawing order works in this case. It seems possible to me that this could cause an issue for someone who needed to stack items in their layout, so perhaps it would still be a nice enhancement to have a parameter exposed in the element pane for you to set the reading order? I suppose that could get irritating if there is a lot of text, so maybe a little menu that you could drag and drop the order independently of the drawing order.

Thanks for the tip!