Accessibility checker flags items that aren't in the document (eg table headers when there's no table)

Hi @Bev24490785q9gd 

Hope you are doing well and thanks for sharing this. What you're describing is actually a really common scenario when exporting from InDesign to PDF, and it's very fixable. Let me walk you through what's likely happening and how to sort it out.

The Accessibility Checker isn't just scanning what you see in the PDF, it's reading the tag tree, which is a hidden structural layer that tells screen readers how to interpret the document. When InDesign exports to PDF, it can sometimes carry over ghost tags (table, list, heading structures) that were either auto-generated, came from a template, or are leftover from earlier versions of the file, even if none of that content is visible on the page. That's why you're seeing TH, TD, list items, and heading nesting flags on what is essentially a simple cover page.

Step-by-step fix in Acrobat

Step 1: Open the Accessibility Tags panel:
Windows: Click the hamburger menu (☰) in the upper left > hover over View > Show/Hide > Side Panels > Tags. Adobe
macOS: Use the View menu in the menu bar > Show/Hide > Side Panels > Tags. Adobe

Step 2: Inspect for rogue tags
Expand the tree and look for any <Table>, <TR>, <TH>, <TD>, <L>, <LI>, <Lbl>, or <LBody> tags. These shouldn't exist in a simple cover page with just an image, heading, logo, and two coloured boxes.

Step 3: Delete the offending tags
Right-click any tag that shouldn't be there and select Delete Tag. Do this carefully, only remove structural tags that have no matching visible content. Your valid tags should roughly be: one <H1> for your heading, <Figure> tags for your image and logo, and <Artifact> for purely decorative elements like the coloured boxes.

Step 4: Fix Alt Text
For each <Figure> tag (your cover image and logo), right-click > Properties > and add meaningful alt text. If the coloured boxes are purely decorative, right-click their tag and set them as an Artifact instead so the checker ignores them.

Step 5: Fix Tab Order
Go to the Pages panel, right-click your page thumbnail > Page Properties > Tab Order, and set it to "Use Document Structure". This resolves the Tab Order flag.

Step 6: Re-run the checker
Tools > Accessibility > Full Check. You should see a dramatically cleaner report.

Preventing this in InDesign next time
Before exporting, check your Articles panel (Window > Articles) in InDesign, make sure only the content you want is included and in the right order. Also, when exporting to PDF (Interactive or Print), under the Tags tab, untick "Generate Tagged PDF" and re-enable it cleanly rather than inheriting stale structure from a previous export. Occasionally, starting your export from a freshly saved copy of the InDesign file clears phantom tag structures.

Hope this information will help.

~Amal