Associated with content – Failed
Acrobat’s “Associated with content – Failed” means alt text sits on a tag with nothing on the page. Why it happens, often after edits, and how to fix it.
Last updated
This message comes from Adobe Acrobat's Accessibility Checker.
Associated with content – Failed is a result from the Accessibility Checker in Adobe Acrobat Pro, in its Alternate Text category. It means a tag in the document's hidden structure has alt text, a description for screen reader users, but no content on the page: no image, no text, nothing for the description to stand in for. Because the description isn't attached to anything on the page, a screen reader can't tell where it belongs, and it may skip it or read it out of place.
What this means
Alt text is a replacement for something on the page. Adobe's help says alternate text should always represent content on the page. When an element has alternate text but no page content, there's no way to tell where it is on the page. Acrobat flags these tags because assistive technology relies on the page content to place what it reads.
It's often a leftover from editing. Common causes:
- An image was deleted in Acrobat, but its
Figuretag, complete with alt text, was left behind in the tag tree. - The content of a tag was later marked as an artifact (decoration), leaving the tag empty.
- Tags were copied, rebuilt or partly re-tagged, leaving empty duplicates with old descriptions.
- Alt text was added to a placeholder tag, and the image was then tagged somewhere else.
The tag looks normal in the Tags panel, with a name and a description, so the problem is easy to miss until a checker finds it.
Why it matters
Screen reader users may never hear the description, or hear it in a strange place with no connection to anything on the page. Either way, the description fails at its one job. Empty tags also clutter the structure that assistive technology moves through. This affects WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Content and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value.
How to fix it in Acrobat Pro
- In the Accessibility Checker panel, expand Associated with content and right-click an item in the list. Choose Show in Tags Panel.
- Turn on Highlight Content in the Tags panel's options menu. An empty tag highlights nothing on the page, which confirms it's a leftover.
- If the content it described was deleted, or is decoration, delete the empty tag: right-click it and choose Delete Tag.
- If the description belongs to an image that's tagged somewhere else, copy the text into that
Figuretag's Properties > Alternate Text, then delete the empty tag. - If the image is on the page but isn't tagged at all, tag it as a figure, for example with the Reading Order tool (Fix reading order in newer versions). Give the new tag the description, and delete the empty one.
- Right-click the rule and choose Check Again.
Fix it in the source file
Because this error comes from editing the PDF after it was tagged, the best prevention is not to edit images in Acrobat at all:
- Change images in the source. Delete, replace or move pictures in Word, PowerPoint or InDesign and export a new tagged PDF, so the tags are rebuilt from scratch.
- If you must edit the PDF, delete the image's tag in the Tags panel at the same time as the image itself.
- Keep the source file current. Once a PDF has been patched by hand, the next export from an old source file brings the old problems back, so carry fixes back to the source.
Fix it automatically with Includoc
Includoc fixes this automatically. We remove alt text from tags that have no content, move it to the tag that holds the image when we can tell which image it belongs to, and remove empty or doubled tags left over from editing.
What you confirm is the descriptions themselves. Every alt text in the document goes to the review screen, where you can approve or edit it, so a description that was moved is checked by a person before you download the fixed file.
Upload your PDF to fix this automatically
Free check in seconds. Files are deleted within 24 hours.
Standards
| Standard or tool | Reference |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.1 | |
| PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1) | Clause 7.3 |
| Acrobat rule | Nested alternate text |
Related errors
- Nested alternate text – Failed: alt text inside alt text, and alt text that hides a link.
- Figures alternate text – Failed: figures that need a description and don't have one.
To understand how tags point to content on the page, read What is a tagged PDF?, or check a PDF free to find empty tags and misplaced alt text.
Related
- Nested alternate text – Failed
Acrobat’s “Nested alternate text” and “Hides annotation” failures mean alt text is on the wrong tag. Why that hides content and how to fix it.
- Figures alternate text – Failed
Acrobat’s “Figures alternate text – Failed” means images have no alt text. How to add it in Acrobat Pro, mark decorative images and write useful alt text.
- What is a tagged PDF? Tags, the tag tree and how to check them
A tagged PDF has hidden structure that tells screen readers what each part is. Learn the common tags, artifacts, role maps and how to view and fix tags.