Flatten Tags (Desktop and Advanced Editor)

Oftentimes, when opening the Tags tree, you'll find grouping tags such as Div, Article, Story, and Part.  In general, these grouping tags are unnecessary and can, in fact, make checking and fixing the reading order more difficult. 

To quickly and easily remove all of these unnecessary tags follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Tags root,
2. Right-click on the Tags root (or otherwise open its context menu), 
3. Choose “Flatten tags” or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F7.  This will "Level up" all of the tags, pushing them out of the unnecessary grouping tags.
   

Note:  This will not “un-nest” tags that, structurally speaking, should be nested.  For example, List Item tags will remain in their parent List tags, Table Row tags will remain in their Table tags, etc. 

When "Flatten Tags" doesn't seem to work correctly

There are a few things that can happen in a PDF, or in CL PDF, so that, when you try to flatten tags, you don't get the result you're hoping for.  

In CL PDF, If you're unable to flatten tags, it could be because your selection settings are set in such a way as to prevent this.  Please check out the article on Selection Settings in CommonLook PDF to make sure you're using the correct options! 

Below are some things that could be going on in the PDF and what the result of Flatten Tags will be.  We'll use an "Article" tag for our examples.  (Keep in mind, an "Article" tag is not a standard PDF tag. Art is the standard PDF tag type that, perhaps, was intended by the authoring software.)

1. The Article tag is role mapped to one of the standard grouping tags ( Sect, Art, etc.).  It should "flatten" properly.  If it doesn't, check your selection settings, as mentioned above.  
2. The Article tag is role mapped to a standard PDF tag that is not a grouping tag (a P, for example).  In this case, its contents will not be flattened, or "pushed out," because that's not supposed to happen to P tags. (The same is true for lists, and tables, for example.  Otherwise, flattening tags would push the list items out of a list tag, for example.)
3. The Article tag is role mapped to anything not in the standard tag set.  (It's role-mapped to another custom tag, for example.)  In this case, it will not flatten because CL PDF doesn't know if it's supposed to be treated like a grouping tag, that should flatten, or some other type of tag that should not flatten.  Recommendation: Change the role mapping to the appropriate standard tag type so that it can be flattened. 
4. The Article tag is not role mapped at all.  As in scenario #2, it will not be flattened because CL PDF isn't entirely sure whether or not that would be correct.  Recommendation: Change the role mapping to the appropriate standard tag type so that it can be flattened. 

Didn't find what you're looking for? Navigate to our "Tagging (or Untagging) Content" section for more related articles that may help!