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<p>Folks who were discussing how to configure Reading Order (not tag
order) in InDesign last week may want to check out a new InDesign
script provided (for free!) by Chad Chelius and Keith Gilbert.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>The script is intended to automate the process of adding
everything in your Layers panel to your Articles panel in the
correct order - so you don't have to repeat the process of
ordering your content first for tag order and then re-doing it
again for reading order. More detail and a link to the download is
available in Chad's post "Setting the Order for PDF Files in
InDesign" posted to LinkedIn on March 26, 2025: <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/setting-order-pdf-files-indesign-chad-chelius-ads-d1tae/">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/setting-order-pdf-files-indesign-chad-chelius-ads-d1tae/</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Also, for what it's worth, I'm not a fan of folks plugging
questions into ChatGPT and cutting and pasting the response into
mailing lists like this one. I think it generally degrades the
value and accuracy of the mailing list. In this case, while some
folks found ChatGPT content to be useful, I personally thought
that ChatGPT's response failed to distinguish clearly between "tag
order" and "reading order" and therefore missed one of the crucial
components of the original question. Besides which, ChatGPT is
just going to regurgitate what it finds elsewhere, rather than
providing current, focused advice from experts or experience,
which is what I rely on this list and the WebAIM list for. Just my
2 cents.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Phil. <br>
<br>
Philip Kiff <br>
D4K Communications<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2025-04-07 5:51 p.m., Eckelberry,
Robin via athen-list wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:BY5PR04MB6616BBF7CF1ECAC9EA0AE974FFAA2@BY5PR04MB6616.namprd04.prod.outlook.com">
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Hi Doug, Steve, and Aaron!</div>
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Thank you for all of your help. I tested some more on my own and
also reached out via WebAIM. </div>
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What I found and trialed echoed the Chat GPT note.</div>
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To be able to have the reading order correct in Acrobat, you
have to adjust the order of the Layers in InDesign. The last
layer is what will be read first, and the first layer is what
will be read last. So yes, ordering from bottom to top in
InDesign is what worked for a correct Order panel for me in
Acrobat.</div>
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I'm glad that process has gotten better since 2021!</div>
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Thanks again!</div>
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P.S. Aaron I owe you some Google Workspace findings, too. </div>
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<b>From:</b> Top Tech Tidbits<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, April 3, 2025 12:41 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> 'Steve Green'; 'Access Technology Higher Education
Network'; 'Hayman, Douglass'; Eckelberry, Robin<br>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - InDesign and Reading
Order (not tag order)
<br>
<br>
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[snip]
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"><span style="font-family: Roboto; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></p>
<div style="padding-top: 3pt; border-top: 1pt solid rgb(225, 225,
225);">
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;
font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri,
sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><b>From:</b> athen-list
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:athen-list-bounces@mailman12.u.washington.edu"><athen-list-bounces@mailman12.u.washington.edu></a>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Steve Green via athen-list<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, April 3, 2025 12:29 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Hayman, Douglass <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:dhayman@olympic.edu"><dhayman@olympic.edu></a>;
Access Technology Higher Education Network
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:athen-list@u.washington.edu"><athen-list@u.washington.edu></a>; Eckelberry, Robin
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:Robin.Eckelberry@nelnet.net"><Robin.Eckelberry@nelnet.net></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - InDesign and
Reading Order (not tag order)</span></p>
</div>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">In 2021, I wrote a short training course on using
InDesign to create PDFs. At that time, I wrote the following:</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">The reading order in the Content panel is set by
the order in which objects are created.</li>
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">It cannot be changed except by deleting an
object and adding it back in, in which case it becomes the
last item in the reading order. This can easily be done using
the following steps on each object in turn:</li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">Select the object.</li>
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">Press Ctrl+X to delete it.</li>
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">Press Ctrl+V to paste it back in.</li>
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">Reposition it if necessary.</li>
<li style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;
margin: 0px;">However, this may break the order in the
Articles panel.</li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">It is possible that something has changed since then, but
I doubt it. It if has, do let me know.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">Since you would be deleting and re-adding complete text
frames, this should be much faster than moving individual lines
in Acrobat. Obviously, creating content in the correct order
would be best, but this can be really difficult.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">Alternatively, you can use Acrobat’s Reading Order Tool
to group all the lines in each paragraph. You would still need
to put the paragraphs in the right order in the Content panel,
but again it’s faster and less error-prone than moving
individual lines.</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">Steve Green</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">Managing Director</p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-size:
12pt;">Test Partners Ltd</p>
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