PDF/UA-1 · CLAUSE 7.1
Content is neither tagged nor marked as an artifact
Every piece of visible content must be either real content in the structure tree, or explicitly marked as an artifact (decoration, page number, background, rule line). Some content here is neither, or artifacts and real content are nested inside each other.
Why it matters
Untagged content is invisible to screen readers, so parts of the page are silently skipped. Wrongly nested artifacts can hide real text or announce decorative page furniture as content.
How to fix it
- In Acrobat Pro open Accessibility > Reading Order and mark decorative graphics, rules, and watermarks as Background (artifact).
- Tag page headers, footers, and page numbers as artifacts rather than leaving them untagged.
- Check the Tags panel for content that appears on the page but has no corresponding tag.
WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (A)
What the standard says
Content marked as Artifact should not be present inside tagged content
Check your own PDF
Validate a file against PDF/UA-1 and see whether this rule fails in your document.
curl -sS -X POST "https://api.ua1.dev/api/validate?format=compact&profile=ua1" \ -F "file=@document.pdf"