Hyperlinks are not recognized by screen reader software after exporting a PPT to a PDF

Question

I used PPT to create a PDF document that I want to link to an internal learning site within my company. Some of our employees use screen reader software, and they need to have access to accessible content. The content that the PDF accompanies is a set of videos and the PDF is the text version of those videos. I've included hyperlinks within the PDF so that the user can jump back and forth within the document and I've also included hyperlinks to a few intranet pages.

I've used the Accessibility checker to ensure each page/slide is accessible; that the elements on each slide is ordered correctly; that AltText is used where needed and when not needed, then items are marked as decorative.

When creating the hyperlinks, I also used the Action function on the Insert menu to ensure proper action takes place when a hyperlink is recognized.

I published the PPT by exporting it rather than Saving As. I checked the "Document structure tags for accessibility" checkbox before clicking the Publish button.

But for the life of me...none of my testing with JAWS has yielded any success in recognizing the hyperlinks.

I also work with a few users who use JAWS on a daily basis as I am not blind and they are. One of these users was able to get JAWS to recognize the hyperlinks, but that's only because he opened the PDF in the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

I work in an organization with more than 80k employees. It's not feasible to get Adobe Acrobat for each and every one of them.

So, what is the trick? How do I get screen reader software to recognize hyperlinks in a PDF that opens in a browser window (sans Acrobat Reader)?

Answer 1

Hi Steve,

The issue was that PDF hyperlinks were not working when the PDF was opened by a browser. It didn't matter what browser opened the PDF, the hyperlinks still did not work when using a screen reader. They work fine if using a mouse, but not using a keyboard to navigate.

Anyway, I ended up loading Acrobat Reader DC onto my machine and set it as the default reader. Then, when using screen reader software, all hyperlinks worked as intended. And reading order, alt text, etc. all worked the way I had set them up to work.

The unfortunate thing is that not everyone who is a keyboard-only user or a screen reader user will know about the need for Adobe Acrobat. Not everyone (like me) has this software on their computers, or if they do, may not have it set as default. I've already sent this issue through the Microsoft developer channel to see if this is a fix they can work on for the next release.

Cathy

Answer 2

Here are a couple of worthwhile reads:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/open-in-acrobat-reader-from-chrome.html  https://www.techbout.com/make-chrome-open-pdf-adobe-47773/

Also, in Reader, press Ctrl+K to get into Preferences dialog, click Internet on the left, then "How to set up your browser .... [etc])

There's also a trick in Reader/Acrobat that might prove useful; I'm pretty sure it's enabled by default.

Ctrl+K, choose General, put a check next to "Create links from URLs"

With this enabled, Acrobat/Reader will treat anything that looks like a URL as a live link, even if the software that created the PDF didn't actually make a link. This might be useful if the PDFs you're linking to are on a web site. It *may* also be possible to have it do this with file:///.. links but I haven't worked out exactly how. In any case, to do this you'd include the URL in the text in PPT:

Click here to open the Style Guide ( https://www.yoursite.com/styleguide.pdf )

Answer 3

Thanks for the reply, Steve.

One of the users has the full version of Adobe Acrobat and his version of JAWS was able to recognize the links easily when opening in Acrobat. The issue was with both Chrome and Edge. So maybe it is the browsers creating the issue.

Now, the thing to do is to see if the Reader software also recognizes the links. If so, then the fix would be to have the company I work for - of over 80k employees - ensure that all computers have Acrobat Reader installed/preloaded on all devices. It doesn't normally come preloaded when we get our computers which is why I don't have it on my computer. It would be great if the browsers would work like the Reader, but until that happens, I guess the Reader would be the fix for now.

Anyway, thanks for the response and helping me narrow the issue.

Answer 4

>> How do I get screen reader software to recognize hyperlinks in a PDF that opens in a browser window (sans Acrobat Reader)?

Can you help clarify something, please? Is the problem evident when you open the PDF in Reader specifically, or when viewing the PDF in a browser window?

If you're viewing the PDF in a browser, consider that some browsers render PDFs themselves rather than using the installed Acrobat or Reader. That might produce unexpected results. There's usually a way to tell the browser to open the PDF in Acrobat or Reader if available.

Perhaps have the people who use screen readers test the PDFs in the free Reader.

Answer 5

Hi CMEdwards_64,

First, my pleasure to assist you.

As per your description, please don’t worry, we can work together to narrow down and resolve the situation.

Based on my test, yes when I test  in PowerPoint and create accessible PDFs and hyperlink not recognized and it will only recognized with  full version of Adobe Acrobat(not a free one).

If you don’t mind (I request, please don’t mind) could you please send feedback to our related PowerPoint development team via our Microsoft PowerPoint feedback portal, to related development team so that they can get notice about it, and it will be fix in next update of Office version. It’s the best way to report to the related development team and we are sure it will speed up this process. Your advice is very important to us

I appreciate your understanding and stay safe!!

Best regards

Waqas Muhammad