Workiva Support Center

Warning location

This warning message is located in Import Errors:

Warning explanation

This warning is triggered when your report contains characters that are not recognized by the system and cannot be converted to xHTML.

Certain features or techniques used during the creation of the visual file are compatible with PDF format, but may not function correctly in xHTML, which can affect text extraction. These non-recognizable graphical elements are displayed as empty square characters (□), in the data extracted to the technical aspect of the final report.

The most common issues come from the following features implemented in the source file:

• Ligatures
  
• Non-breaking spaces
• Open Type features
• Bullet points

How to solve it

1. First you need to find where the issue comes from by following the below step-by-step guide:
2. Convert your Excel template and PDF report on the Workiva Report Tagging Tool.
   
3. On the Validation Summary page, go to “Import Errors” and copy the name of the element (or one of the elements) that appears in the “FactContainsUnreadableCharacters” message, (in this case, DisclosureOfIncomeTaxExplanatory).
   
   1. Go to the Viewer tab.
   2. Open the sidebar and paste the element into the search box.
   3. Scroll to the highlighted element and click on it.
   4. The viewer will take you directly to the tagged element in the report.
4. Click on the HTML button in the secondary sidebar.
5. In the window that appears, look for the square character (□), which represents a graphical issue.
   

How to fix these in InDesign and Microsoft Word

• If you use InDesign, here is a guide on how to avoid and/or get rid of these graphical issues: Recommendations  for designers.
• If you use Word, the most common causes of graphical issues are bullet points. We recommend that you use numbers or characters rather than bullet points for numbering.