Appropriate nesting - failed, but the reading order is correct

Hello @lindsay_3411,

I hope you are doing well, and thanks for reaching out. Sorry for the trouble you had.

Could you please share more details about the issue?

1. Which Acrobat Pro version/build and operating system are you using?

2. Is “Appropriate nesting – Failed” being reported by Acrobat’s built-in Accessibility Check, or by another accessibility checker?

3. How were these PDFs created: A) Microsoft Word, B) Adobe InDesign, C) another application, or D) directly in Acrobat?

4. In Acrobat’s Tags panel, are the H1–H4 tags actually nested hierarchically under one another, or are they sequential sibling tags even though their heading levels are correct?

Please note that you can have the correct logical reading sequence and still receive “Appropriate nesting – Failed” because Acrobat checks the heading hierarchy in the tag tree, not only the H1–H4 sequence.

1. In the Accessibility Checker, expand Headings > Appropriate nesting, right-click a failed H3, and select Show in Tags Panel.

2. In the Accessibility tags panel, compare the failed H3 with one that passes. Check its parent container, sibling level, and position. Assigning H3 in Properties does not, by itself, confirm that the tag is correctly positioned in the document structure.

3. If the tag is misplaced, move it to the appropriate section level by dragging it or using Cut, followed by Paste or Paste Child. Save a copy before modifying the tag tree.

4. If the PDF was exported from Word, InDesign, or another authoring application, Adobe recommends correcting the heading/section structure in the source file and exporting the tagged PDF again whenever possible.

5. Rerun the check using Check Again in the Accessibility Checker panel.

You can also refer to these help articles for more information:

https://adobe.ly/4y0LlbF

https://adobe.ly/4yv8in0

https://adobe.ly/3URyxpm

I hope this helps, and please let us know how it goes, or reach out if you need any assistance.

Regards,

Anand Sri.