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HELP with PDF tables!

508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27
Answered

W7 with Adobe Pro 9.
 
I have a few complex tables that I tagged using the TouchUp Reading Order tool. The problem is Adobe is automatically making some blank cells a cell when I do not want them to be. Is Adobe really that restricted when it comes to editing tables? I did not see many options when it came to editing single cells (or deleting them).
 
Another problem is that the image quality is medium-poor and some of the OCR'ed text did not show, is there a way I can edit text within a tagged table? Any 3rd party software that can handle this? Thanks much!
 

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.1, Windows
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
Accepted Answer
Just some observations; but, in W7 you really want/need Acrobat Pro X.
As to table cells. Presuming a table in a PDF is not a "layout" table (which cannot be processed for even workable accessibility)cell(s) in a well-formed Tagged PDF can most certainly contain no content.
If a Table in a Tagged PDF is to be correctly configured cells are not "deleted".
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Table configuration in a Tagged PDF is dicussed in the ISO PDF Standard (ISO 32000-1).
Section 14.8.4.3.4 begins the discussion on what constitutes a correctly build <Table> element (tag).

Adobe's ISO authorized release of ISO 32000-1.
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As to editing of OCR output (which is a different activity then useing the TouchUp Text tool to perform minor edits to character strings of renderable textual content):
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If the OCR is from Searchable Image or Searchable Image (Exact) there is no practicable means of editing the characters.
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If the OCR is from ClearScan then minor edits are possible.
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fwiw - tagging OCR output from Searchable Image or Searchable Image (Exact) is not a productive activity.
If the scan is of textual content start with ClearScan.
Greatest efficacy is achieved by producing a Tagged output PDF from an appropriate authoring application.
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From looking over some of the various "how-to" associated with NetCentric's CommonLook that are floating out on the web it appears that it might give you some measure of satisfaction. CommonLook is an Acrobat Pro plug-in. Expensive & a steep learning curve.
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btw - For a "complex" table you'll need to add IDs to each cell and the appropriate Header attribute(s) to cells. These are discussed in ISO 32000-1.
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Be well...

508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27
Thank you again daka for the resources, I will be sure to study them. I do have a trial version of CommonLook but as you mentioned it it is quite difficult out of the box and I am still learning how it works. Thank you.