Adobe Acrobat Reader: Troubleshooting Flagged Annotations

Overview

A Tagged Annotations Failed error in Adobe Acrobat means there is an accessibility compliance issue. It indicates that comments, links, or form fields are incorrectly structures, causing saving errors, app crashes, or accessibility violations. 

Considerations

• If annotations are not visible: Make sure the "Comment" tools are enabled and visible in your Acrobat interface. 
• If annotations are missing: Check for pending Acrobat updates and consider restarting the program. 

Resolving Due to Un-Tagged Comments

1. Access the "Comments" Pane: 

1. Do one of the following: 
   1. Click the "Comment" button in the top right corner of the application. 
      
      
      
   2. Go to the "Tools" menu, select "Comment," and then "Open". 
      

Removing Comments

In some cases where comments are used but not crucial to the document, you can delete the comments and recheck for accessibility. 

Steps

1. Right click on the comment you'd like to delete
2. Select Delete
   

Adding Tags to Annotations

If the comment or another type of annotation is necessary to the context of the document, you can scan and add a tag to the annotation. 

Steps:

1. Right click the <Tags> tag
2. Select Find
   
   
3. Set the Find field to Unmarked Annotations 
4. Select the Search Document Option
   
5. Select Find
6. Select Tag Element
7. Set type to the type of annotation, and title to be descriptive of the element you are tagging 
   
   1. Comments will be typed Annotation
8. Select OK
9. Drag your new tag (should auto populate to the bottom of tag tree) to the proper place in the tree structure. 
   

Additional Resources

Create and Verify PDF Accessibility, Tagged Annotations