These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

How to repeat table column headers for tables spanning multiple pages??

508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27

I am using ABBY Fine Reader to remediate scanned documents. On one table, it only has column headers for the first page and the data cells continue onto the next page but the headers are not present.
 
I'm trying to get JAWS to read the headings on the subsequent pages but if there are no headings present on the page, how can I get JAWS to repeat the headers for PDF table navigation?
 
After ABBY I am remediating the file in Adobe and setting the column headings there, thanks in advance!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.4.3, Windows
KellyMcC
Acrobat 9ExpertTeam
Registered: Jul 11 2011
Posts: 389
Once the OCR is finished and you are in Acrobat, are you running the Accessibility Checker, or manually creating Tags in your PDF file? This document may help, if you are newer to Acrobat Accessibility:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Acrobat/9.0/Professional/WS58a04a822e3e50102bd615109794195ff-7cf8.w.php
If you aren't new to it, could you give me more specific details on how you are adding the column headings in Acrobat?

Kelly McCathran
Adobe Community Expert
Certified Technical Trainer+

508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27
Thank you Kelly. I open the file in ABBYY Fine Reader and tag tables and make/merge cells. Once it's converted to a PDF it's already tagged as a table. I right-click on the table and set each cell as either column header or data cell. This let's JAWS repeat the table column headers for each row.

The issue is on the second page (for a table spanning multiple pages) because the column headers simply aren't physically present. How can I make them repeat?

Thank you.
daka630
Expert
Registered: Mar 1 2007
Posts: 1420
"How to make them repeat?"
.
You would need to have the table's header row repeating on subsequent PDF pages to achieve what you want for the table in question. That'd be accomplished by properly configuring the table in the authoring application.
.
The manual tagging of a scanned image having OCR does not provide an integrated Table element.
Consequently, for the table, the basic layout requirements established in ISO 32000-1 for content split across PDF pages are not met.
.
ISO 32000 can be "chewy"; but, some sections to gather something of gleam as to the "why" are 14.8.3, 14.8.3.4, & 14.8.5.4.
.


Be well...

508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27
Thank you daka, however, I am not the author and these are pre-exiting forms and tables in the PDF. I guess the answer is that it cannot be done because the column headers just aren't present in the table on the second page.

My end goal is for JAWS to repeat the column headers in the table for the pages that do not headers; since they are not carried over when spanning multiple pages. Thank you all.
508
Registered: Jan 6 2011
Posts: 27
I have found the solution to this issue through some trial-and-error. In a nutshell, I simply cut the TR tags and paste them into the previous page where the table starts. As long as you paste them in order and below the last row of the first table it will work, thanks all.