Manually Tagging PDF in Adobe Acrobat

When do you Manually Tag a Document?

It is always preferable to create PDF from a source document exported from Word or PowerPoint, but there will be times when you need to manually tag a PDF. Adobe allows manual tagging using the Reading Order tool which can help you repair poorly exported tags, repair auto-generated tags, or  tag a PDF without its original source document.

Practice Document

Untagged PDF Accessibility Source Document.pdf Download Untagged PDF Accessibility Source Document.pdf

The Reading Order Tool

Follow these instructions to open the reading order tool:

  1. Open the Accessibility Checker (look for the ADA icon) from the Tools sidebar on the right-hand side of Adobe Acrobat.
  2. On the list of actions, select Reading Order.

How to Manually Tag Documents

Preparation for manually tagging a PDF

If your document has tags you are trying to replace, do the following:

  1. Open the Accessibility tools.
  2. Open the reading order tool.
  3. Select the clear page structure button to remove existing tag elements.

If you are working with an untagged document, do the following:

  1. Open the Accessibility tools.
  2. Open the reading order tool.

Tagging the document

The reading order tool allows you to tag the following elements in a document:

  • text/paragraph
  • form field
  • figure
  • figure/caption
  • heading 1-6
  • reference
  • note
  • table
  • cell
  • formula
  • background/artifact

Other elements such as lists and links will require tag management to meet WCAG requirements. With the Reading Order tool open, do the following to select and tag content:

  1. Using your mouse, left-click and drag the selection box over the text you want to tag.
  2. Select the tag type from the reading order tool.
  3. Repeat until your entire document has tags for all text.