InDesign Endnotes Accessibility Issue: Conflicting Errors with Alt Text and Link Annotations in Tagged PDF

You’re hitting a bit of a snag on how endnotes export from Adobe InDesign and how Adobe Acrobat Pro / PAC expect link annotations to be tagged.

What’s happening is both errors are about the same thing:

• If you add alt text to the OBJR (link annotation) > Acrobat flags “Nested alternate text - failed”
• If you don’t > PAC flags “Contents entry… only whitespace” because the link has no accessible name

The fix is to not use alt text on the OBJR at all, and instead give the link a proper Contents value.

In Acrobat:

• Go to the Tags panel and find the Link tag for the endnote
• Remove any alt text from the OBJR
• Then select the actual link annotation (on the page), open Properties, and fill in the Contents field (e.g. “Go to endnote 12”)

That satisfies PAC without triggering the nested alt text error.

On the InDesign side:

• Avoid applying Object Export Options (alt text) to endnote reference links
• Let the visible text carry meaning, or use a more descriptive cross-reference format if needed

Alt text is for images, Contents is for links mixing the two on OBJR is what causes the conflict.