Empty tags appear when converting documents

semwriter,
What you are experiencing is not an issue associated with PDF per se.
With each version of PDF, tagged PDF has been improved/refined to support the desired functionality.

As you are entering content, into the MS Word file, using some given Word Style (in your case "Normal") you apply this style to each new line created by use to the Enter key.
This is the case whether the line has textual content entered or not.
The line has its "style" set.
Any tagged output PDF, by design, will reflect this by containing a structure element.
For what you describe this is most likely the Block-level structure element tag "P".
All structure element tags must have the structure type (S) identified. In your situation this is "Normal".

With that said, it appears that you are using Enter to provide white space to delineate lines/paragraphs.
Use of the Enter key for this guarentees that "extra tags" will be present.

To fix/avoid this:
Consider editing the Word style.
Edit the space above or below settings for the style.
For instance, a value of 72 points for space below will give you 1 inch of white space between text lines when you press Enter.
This white space has no "style" associated with it. Thus, the tagged output PDF will have no undesired tag (structure element).

You can update Word's Normal.dot file to retain the edits or create one or more customized templates to serve your needs.
MS Word help describes how to do this.

Thank you very much. This should help me a great deal.

I appreciate the quick response.

Has anyone tried to use preflight to identify empty paragraph tags or paragraph tags which contain only spaces? I am exploring this tool and would appreciate any guidance, resources. Thank you.

Hi rbrtva,
Looking over the Preflight checks and fixups in AA8 & AA9, I've come across nothing that gives that granular a look at the structure tree.Actually, the issue you describe needs to be addressed with the content author(s).
Tags that are "empty" or have spaces reflect poor mastering of the content into the authoring file.

Not an issue for sending an imprint to paper. It does, however, truncate what a well formed, tagged PDF can be used for.
(reflow, simple copy & paste to another application, export of content with reasonable preservation of layout/format, accessibility)How to produce the empty tags, etc.

Start a Word file. Only use the Normal paragraph style.
For content headings, change the text's font size and font weight.
For white space above/below, use the Enter key.

When done, configure Adobe PDFMaker for support of a tagged output PDF.
Open the PDF's Tags panel. Observe all the -Normal- tags.
Open the Role Map dialog. Observe that Word's style "Normal" is role mapped to the PDF paragraph (-P-) element.
Observe that nothing is role mapped to the PDF heading elements
(-H1- through -H6-).
All you have is -Normal- role mapped to -P-.

There will be empty tags (the line feed/Enter used for white space management).
Other -Normal- tags will have content containers (n.b., the space character is a piece of content - perhaps, also used for white space management?).