Manually Adding Link In Already-Tagged PDF Causes All Other Links to Throw Tagged Annotation Errors

[kethryvalis]

Hello!  I have an incredibly complex 216-page report that I'm working on.  Let me preface this by stating that the end-client requires that all 508 accessibility be performed in Adobe Acrobat and that it fully pass the Accessibility Checker within Adobe Acrobat.  I cannot use any other software.  I also, unfortunately, cannot share the document for proprietary reasons as it is currently unpublished.

This document was originally created in Microsoft Word and then saved to a PDF.  I've spent HOURS (probably about 40 so far) in Adobe on this document, making it accessible.  Other than some really time-consuming work on giant, complex tables, it's been going pretty smoothly.  Until now.

The document contains a bunch of footnotes.  Per the client, I am required to use Reference and Note tags throughout to tag them.  I am working through those now.  I've gotten to footnote 13 and am stumped.  The footnote simply contains a hyperlink.  But, unfortunately, even though it looks correct (blue, underlined, etc.), it slipped through the cracks in the preliminary review in Word and wasn't a real, live hyperlink.

Here is some generic placeholder text to illustrate the footnotes on the page (the hyperlink in footnote 13 is a typed out hyperlink to a PDF document housed on a government site):

12 This is some generic placeholder footnote text.

13 http://www.website.com/file.pdf

I've tried multiple ways to add the hyperlink to the text and then tag it appropriately.  However, no matter the method I use, as soon as it's finally tagged correctly, the Accessibility Checker throws about 345 "Tagged annotations - Failed" errors at me for every other hyperlink in the document.

The tagged text originally came over from word in the following tag structure:

<Footnote>

     <P>

          13 http://www.website.com/file.pdf

I've tried all the hyperlink methods with it that way.  I then thought maybe the original tag structure was the issue, so I tried dragging the P tag up a level in case the "Footnote" tag was throwing things off.  No good.  I tried separating the 13 and the hyperlink into their own tags.  Still no good.

No matter what I do, after the <Link> and Link - OBJR tags are added (no matter the method), I suddenly get the 345 Tagged annotation errors.

I thought maybe it was because the hyperlink itself is the footnote text, but I'm not sure.  I tried adding some text in Acrobat right before it, but I'm not having any luck with that, either, since the text is being added in Adobe and not Word.

I've spent 2 months overall working with the client to get this document prepped and ready, and it's due by 11:59 p.m. ET tonight.  I thought I was in the final homestretch on it, but this throws a giant monkey wrench into the works.  (Which is why I'm posting this at 5 a.m. after being up since 11 a.m. the day prior ...)

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?  Thank you in advance!

[raeben3]

So you are saying if it was not for that ONE link, the document would be ready to go? But as soon as you tag it, and then save the document all the other Links drop out of their tags and you get the above error?  So if you deleted that ONE link, the PDF would pass the checker?

It sounds like you've been through the mill on this one, but it might be helpful to know what version of Acrobat you are using and if it is an enterprise version or if you subscribe through CC.  There are preflights analysis/fixups in the latest release of Acrobat that will check for file corruption -- not that this will solve, but it might shed some light.  Have you tried extracting/deleting the page with the problematic link, saving as Word, then making a new PDF page and re-inserting?

When there is an issue on one page that is causing problems this will often work. I recently had a file with an extra LinkObj on the page that could not be seen, could not be deleted and the only way I could get rid of it was to delete the page and reinsert a freshly created page. 

I have experienced problems in the past where "Save As" will cause unexpected problems.  Better to do a straight save and then make copies in Explorer as backup in those cases. 

Also try using Create PDF from a blank page, then insert your PDF after that blank page.  Creating a new PDF will sometimes fix corruption problems (at least enough to make the file usable) and Insert from File should bring the existing tags with it. 

[kethryvalis]

Thanks for your response, raeben3!

I never did figure out what was going on with that hyperlink. I still had other Reference/Note tags to add to the document after that one as I was doing them sequentially (that was footnote 13 out of 60, not to mention a bunch of manually typed ones inside of tables that I had to tag, as well). But, at that point, I had eliminated all errors and Adobe was passing the document; so, in a way, yes, that hyperlink was keeping me from being able to pass the checker.

I am using Adobe Acrobat DC through CC (I am one of several people at my company with a subscription).

What I ended up doing was fixing the hyperlink in the original Word document. Then, I saved that as a PDF. I inserted the document at the end of the original PDF so I'd keep the tagging structure. I then moved page 23 (with the corrected hyperlink) up to the correct position, deleted old page 23 (with the defunct hyperlink), and then deleted all the added pages from the end.

Thankfully, it ended up working, though it did make a mess of my tags. It inserted extra blank tables, Span tags, and stretched out some of my P tags like this:

Thi

s

is

h

o

w

it treated

som

e

of my

te

xt.

But, I cleaned it up and made it work.

I may have to try your Save trick sometime, as well as the blank page one. I was taught to constantly save a new iteration pretty much any time you make a major change since you can't Undo. Plus, if the file ends up becoming corrupted or you need to step back after getting an error (like in this case), you can go immediately back to the previously saved version and rework it from there. So, I generally save the file name with v2, v3, v4, etc. after it every time. (For reference, I ended up with 102 file saves by the end, and it popped this hyperlink error at v64!)

Once I get some sleep, I may actually go back to v64 (I saved a side "corrupted" version for reference) and see if your save/blank page tricks work. Even though the file is done, I'd like to see if that would be an option should I ever run into this problem again. (I'm going to have to do another report similar to this one in June for the same client; so, it'd be good to know!)