Telerik Reporting PDF Accessibility: hyperlink tagging problem

[odmht001]

Hello Telerik Support,

We’re implementing PDF accessibility in Telerik Reporting and enabled it via deviceInfo passed to RenderReport:

var deviceInfo = new Hashtable

{

  {"EnableAccessibility", true},

  {"Title", "CustomTitle"},

  {"DocumentCreator", "CustomCreator."},

  {"DocumentProducer", "CustomProducer."},

  {"DocumentNaturalLanguage", "en-En"},

  {"WriteDefaultAccessibleDescription", false},

  {"FontEmbedding", "Full"},

};

 

var result = reportProcessor.RenderReport("PDF", reportSource, deviceInfo);

After rendering document, document has accesability features but PAC (PDF checker for accesability) reports accessibility warnings related to tagged content structure.

In particular, text is split into multiple <Span> tags and link text is also tagged as <Span> instead of a link annotation <Link> element (example screenshot attached; sensitive data obfuscated).

 

We attempted multiple approaches to generate a proper link structure:

• Using <a href="..."> inside HtmlTextBox
• Using Interactivity → Action → NavigateToUrl (with and without href)
• Switching from HtmlTextBox to TextBox and applying NavigateToUrl
• Creating dedicated HtmlTextBox/TextBox elements containing only the link

None of these produced a properly tagged link element in the output PDF.

Are we missing any additional configuration or a required reporting element setup to ensure hyperlinks are exported as proper link annotations/tags in accessible PDFs?

We’re using Telerik Reporting version 18.3.24.1218.

 

[Todor]

Hello,

I replied to your ticket on the same topic and will add the same information here, so our community may access it.

I tested locally with your Reporting version 18.3.24.1218, and two newer versions, including our latest 2026 Q1 (20.0.26.211). Here is the screenshot from PAC. Note the 'Link Annotations' for the hyperlink in the HtmlTextBox, and for the NavigateToUrl Action in 'textbox1':

The above is according to the PDF Accessibility feature in our product.

With PDF accessibility enabled, Telerik Reporting adds structural tags to meet PDF/UA requirements. All items are currently rendered as <Span> elements in the tagged PDF output. For the links, there are <Link> annotations. This applies to both HtmlTextBox with <a> tags and TextBox with NavigateToUrl actions.

There is no additional configuration or report item setup available that will force hyperlinks to be exported as <Link> instead of <Span> elements.

If the desired link tagging is essential, you might consider post-processing the PDF with a third-party PDF tool or library that can add or adjust PDF tags. This would be an external step after the report is generated.

Regards,
Todor
Progress Telerik