InDesign paragraph borders and rules fail PDF/UA-1 accessibility (Unmarked Content Error)
Hello,
I would like to report a persistent PDF/UA compliance bug regarding Paragraph Borders and Paragraph Rules exported from InDesign 21.4.1.
[Description of the issue]
When using the built-in "Paragraph Borders" or "Paragraph Rules" features within Paragraph Styles, InDesign fails to correctly tag or artifact the generated vector lines upon PDF export, even when the export tagging for the style is forced to a specific tag (like H2 or P) and "Create Tagged PDF" is checked.
As a result, tools like Adobe Acrobat Preflight (PDF/UA-1 validation profile) and axesCheck return a critical compliance error: "Content neither marked as artifact nor nested within a structural element" (Unmarked Content). The vector line is exported as an independent, untagged graphical object adjacent to the text container inside the tag.
[Steps to reproduce]
1. Create a Paragraph Style for a heading (e.g., H2).
2. Enable "Paragraph Border" or "Paragraph Rule" inside this style.
3. In Export Tagging, force the PDF Tag to "H2".
4. Export the document as an Interactive or Print PDF with "Create Tagged PDF" enabled.
5. Run a PDF/UA-1 Preflight check in Adobe Acrobat Pro or axesCheck.
[Expected result]
The paragraph border/rule should be automatically integrated as an attribute of the text container or automatically nested as an <Artifact> layout element.
[Actual result]
The file fails PDF/UA-1 validation due to untagged content. The user has to manually use the Reading Order tool in Acrobat Pro to mark each border/rule as an artifact, which is extremely time-consuming for long documents.
Thank you for looking into this.
Liza Kalys
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