Table of Contents links - Tagged Annotations - Failed

[Zoe5FCE]

Created TOC in Indesign (CC 2020) via Layout menu. Bookmarks exist too. Exported as Interactive PDF with "Create Tagged PDF" and "Use Structure for Tab Order" checked. In Acrobat, after Accessibility Check, TOC gets "Tagged Annotations - Failed".

I have done this other documents, but does not happen. What am I doing wrong?

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

What checker and version of Acrobat are you using?

[Zoe5FCE]

I'm using the checker in Acrobat. Don't have access to PDF Accessibility Checker (company restriction on software).

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Good to know.

That checker gets updated frequently when Acrobat is updated.

Still need to know the version of InDesign and Acrobat.

View this blog to learn how to find your versions. https://www.pubcom.com/blog/software-versions/index.shtml

Annotation errors are caused by several things, so the software versions will help us narrow down the possibilities and help you get this corrected.

[Zoe5FCE]

Acrobat DC is 2020.009.20067; Indesign 15.0.3. Currently can't update because still on High Sierra.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Good.

Just a gentle reminder, accessibility requires us to keep our software up to date: both Adobe and Microsoft, the 2 leading software companies for accessible content, are continually tweaking the accessibility parts, checkers, and tools. We work on both Macs and Windows here at my shop and I finally had to give up my beloved ol' MacBook Pro and get a new Mac Studio. And my wallet cried a bit!

Suggestion: keep the version you have up to date via your Cretive Cloud app. You don't have to upgrade to a new version (and new Apple OS and new Apple computer) to do an update.

And update your Acrobat (again, you can keep your existing OS and hardware). It has a better, more accurate accessibility checker and preflight utility.

InDesign 2020 is stable, but you're missing some accuracies in how it exports a PDF. But I don't think they affect the problem you're currently having with annotations.

One of the most common reasons for an annotation error from your versions is a bug when we create hyperlinks. The trick is to edit your hyperlinks in the Hyperlinks panel, and UNcheck the option for Shared Hyperlink Destination for each hyperlink. (It's below #2 below)

UNcheck the option for Shared Hyperlink Destination.

There's something buggy about Shared Hyperlinks in InDesign that causes the hyperlink annotations to fail in the exported PDF.

Steps:

1. Edit all of your hyperlinks and uncheck shared desginations.

2. SAVE AS the InDesign INDD with a new name (this rewrites the file's code and gets rid of any unnecessary or outdated code).

3. Re-export a new interactive PDF.

4. Run the PDF through the Acrobat checker.

Let us know if that improves the annotations problem.

 

[Zoe5FCE]

with hyperlinks I uncheck the "shared designations". My problem is with the Table of Contents links. In the pdf - Contents panel there are links, but there are no tags in the tags panel. Asked a friend who has most current software (2023) to generate - problem persists.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Thanks for the screen captures, @Zoe5FCE.

Your entire tag structure of the TOC is way off, and many tags are missing — TOCI, Reference, Link, Link-OBJR — as well as the required nesting. That's probably what's triggering the annotations error in the Acrobat checker.

I created a test file from InDesign ver 18.2.1.455 / Windows (2023) and everything exported correctly to the PDF. Full tags are there and it passes the Acrobat checker without any annotation errors.
PDF Tag Tree for TOC / TOCI.

First, can you give us your operating system, version and build number of Adobe InDesign, and version/build of Acrobat?

Second, let's review how to make a TOC. It looks like you know how to do this, but I'm writing it here for everyone else's benefit who stumbles on this discussion in the future. And there's a chance you might find one or two tweaks that fixes the problem, too.

1. Create a well formed INDD layout that uses paragraph styles to a) format the text, and b) designate the tags for the exported PDF. For TOCs, we're focusing mainly on headings and any other text that you'll want to include in the TOC. Note: the Export Tags setting in the style itself does not have anything to do with the TOC tags in the PDF.

2. Define a new TOC Style. Think of this as a recipe or script for InDesign to generate the TOC itself, grabbing the heading text and its page number. Layout / TOC Style.

     a) At the top of the dialogue box, select the layout's paragraph styles that you want to appear in the TOC.

     b) Select each item and complete the advanced settings in the lower half of the dialogue, including the new paragraph style to apply to each TOC entry. In the example below, the H2 "pick up" will apply the TOC Body Text style to the entries in the TOC.

Formatting each level of the TOC entries.

3. Use the TOC Style and generate the TOC. Layout / Table of Contents.

4. Adjust the TOC Body Text formatting style. Choose font, size, tab stop, leader, leading/spacing, and other formatting controls. Set the Export Tag to Automatic so that the correct complex TOCI tag structure is created. Setting the export tag to anything other than Automatic can cause tag problems in the PDF.

5. Export to Interactive PDF.

Let us know how your trial PDF comes out, and your system software.

—Bevi

[Zoe5FCE · Accepted solution]

showed it to a colleague (a former student of yours). She pointed out I forgot to add the TOC to the articles panel!  - a real rookie move. Thanks for your time Bevi. I'm hoping to take one of your remediation courses this summer.

-Zoe

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

Hi Zoe,

So glad that was easy to fix.

Yes, that Articles panel sidetracks all of us at some point. It's an all-or-nothing tool: once you use it, make sure every element in your document is in it. Left out items are untagged.

And say hi to my former student / your colleague for me!