ACCESSIBILITY IN PDF FORMS

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Gilbert Barnett
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1 ACCESSIBILITY IN PDF FORMS 1

2 2 WHAT Remediation IS COMPLIANCE?

accessible to people with disabilities. The law (29 U.S.C.

3 508 COMPLIANCE 3 WHAT IS 508 COMPLIANCE? In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. The law (29 U.S.C. 794 (d)) applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others. - GSA Government-Wide Section 508 Accessibility Program

Structure must be established in order to achieve the desired

4 508 COMPLIANCE AND PDF 4 WHY IS 508 COMPLIANCE A CHALLENGE IN PDF? Structure Layout VS. Structure must be established in order to achieve the desired output Output will appear exactly as it did in the editor with which it was created, no structure necessary.

5 508 COMPLIANCE AND PDF 5 DOCUMENT STRUCTURE THROUGH TAGS Standard PDF Forms (AcroForms) require Tags for document structure. Access Tags via the menu: View > Show/Hide > Navigation Pane > Tags

6 508 COMPLIANCE AND PDF 6 BUILT IN STRUCTURE WITH XFA XFA Forms, like HTML, are built with structure. The hierarchy tree of XFA provides the basic needs of accessibility. Each object has Accessibility properties including the ability to specify Screen Reader Text

7 508 COMPLIANCE RESOURCES 7 RECOMMENDED RESOURCES Accessibility: What PDF/A-1a Really Means PDF Association, Duff Johnson Making Files Accessible U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Acrobat DC Accessibility Guides Adobe PDF Creation Best Practices Appligent

8 8 CREATING Remediation TAGGED FORMS

9 DESIGNED FOR COMPLIANCE 9 BEST PRACTICES FOR DESIGN Keep the layout simple, avoid the use of unnecessary graphics. Do not use color to convey meaning. Avoid double page spreads, complex or overlapping graphics and background images. Keep tables simple. Tables with headers that span multiple rows or columns can be tagged successfully, but require time and expertise. Stay away from custom typefaces or stylized bullets which increase file size and can trigger Unicode mapping errors in the Accessibility Checker.

10 GENERATING TAGGED PDFS 10 3 METHODS FOR GENERATING PDF TAGS 1. MS Word Save As PDF with Tags 2. InDesign Export File with Tags 3. Use Acrobat to Generate Tags Accessibility guidelines will generally recommend generating tags from the source document, but with PDF Forms this is not always the best option.

11 LEVERAGE THE SOURCE DOCUMENT 11 MICROSOFT WORD FORMS For most PDFs, it makes sense to take advantage of MS Word formatting which will translate successfully to PDF tags. This isn to always the case with forms. Fillable fields in MS Word are NOT retained when converting to PDF.

12 LEVERAGE THE SOURCE DOCUMENT 12 MS WORD TO PDF To generate PDF Tags out of Word, be sure that Document structure tags for accessibility is checked under Options. MS Word formatting translates to PDF tags including header levels and tables.

13 LEVERAGE THE SOURCE DOCUMENT 13 BUILDING FORMS WITH INDESIGN When formatted correctly, InDesign files can produce well tagged PDFs. Tables and fields will be tagged correctly. Fillable fields in InDesign are retained in the PDF output document along with the field names and tooltips.

14 LEVERAGE THE SOURCE DOCUMENT 14 INDESIGN TO PDF Generate PDF using File > Export and select Interactive PDF to retain fillable fields. Header and Paragraph formatting is tagged correctly. Fillable fields and PDF tags will likely still require some adjustment.

ADDING TAGS IN ACROBAT 15 HOW TO GENERATE TAGS WITH ACROBAT Using the Add Tags to Document option in the Tags panel, Acrobat will attempt to auto-tag

15 ADDING TAGS IN ACROBAT 15 HOW TO GENERATE TAGS WITH ACROBAT Using the Add Tags to Document option in the Tags panel, Acrobat will attempt to auto-tag the open PDF file. In order to use Acrobat to tag, you may need to delete any existing tags from the document if the panel does not read No Tags Available

16 ADDING TAGS IN ACROBAT 16 ACROBAT AUTO GENERATED TAGS Acrobat will attempt to name tags correctly for Header, Paragraphs, Tables, etc. Existing Form Fields will be tagged correctly. Results vary greatly depending upon the source document.

17 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 17 ADDING FIELDS WITH ACROBAT Unless you re outputting interactive PDFs from InDesign, you will need to add fields to your PDF with Acrobat.* The results/output of Auto Detected form fields will typically require manual adjustment.

18 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 18 GENERAL FIELD PROPERTIES Using descriptive field names will make it easier to adjust tags. All fields require a Tooltip value to be considered Accessible, it helps to be as descriptive as possible.

19 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 19 RADIO BUTTONS VS. CHECK BOXES Do not use radio buttons in forms that need to be made compliant While Acrobat clearly recommends the use of radio button fields when only one item can be selected, they are not recommended when creating Accessible PDF forms. To create a mutually exclusive check box set: Assign the same name to all check boxes in the set. Give each check box in the set a unique Export Value in the Options tab.

20 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 20 TAB ORDER A logical tab order is required for PDF forms to be considered Accessible. Default orders are available in the Form editing pane in Acrobat. Field order can be manually adjusted by dragging and dropping fields in the Form editing pane.

21 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 21 MANUALLY TAGGING FIELDS When adding fields to a PDF file that is already tagged, you will need to manually generate form field tags. In the Tags panel, use the Find feature and look for Unmarked Annotations.

22 FORM FIELDS AND ACCESSIBILITY 22 STRUCTURE OF A FIELD TAG Form Field tags will not be properly nested under a Form tag when generated in this way. Field Label tags can be used for associated text, but are not necessary for compliance. Tooltips are more important for screen readers.

23 CREATING ACCESSIBLE PDF FORMS 23 GENERAL STEPS TO AN ACCESSIBLE FORM Draft form in source program using formatting to enhance tagging if preferred. Save As or Export to PDF with Tags Add fillable fields/areas if not retained from source program. Make sure fields have tooltips and set tab order, add any advanced features. If existing PDF tags are in good shape, manually tag the fields. If not, delete existing tags and attempt to auto generate tags with Acrobat.

24 ACCESSIBILITY IN LIFECYCLE DESIGNER 24 BUT WHAT ABOUT XFA? LiveCycle Designer ES4 for Windows version (Service Pack 1) provides an Accessibility Checker. All Accessibility setup must be done in LiveCycle. The tags panel in Acrobat will display No Tags Available. All Accessibility checker options in Acrobat will be greyed out. While dynamic XFA forms can be made functionally accessible, they cannot be considered PDF-UA compliant, only static XFA can meet that standard.

25 ACCESSIBILITY IN LIFECYCLE DESIGNER 25 MAKING XFA FORMS ACCESSIBLE Every Object in LiveCycle Designer has Accessibility properties. Heading Levels should be set under Role. All form fields should be assigned a Tool Tip or Custom Screen Reader Text and the Screen Reader Precedence should be set.

26 508 COMPLIANCE RESOURCES 26 FORM SPECIFIC RESOURCES Creating Accessible PDFs Adobe Creating Accessible PDF Forms Using Adobe Acrobat University of Washington Creating Accessible PDF Documents with InDesign Adobe Adobe LiveCycle ES4 - Creating Accessible Forms Adobe WS92d06802c76abadb123f9dcc129b8b html

27 27 REMEDIATION Remediation

28 REMEDIATION 28 WHY TAGS NEED REMEDIATION? Document Title and Language are not set. Title and Headers are not correctly identified in tags. Reading order is not correct. Graphics and images do not have alternate text. Form fields are not tagged correctly or organized with their field labels. Table structures are not tagged correctly. Graphic content that does not convey information has not been converted to artifact.

29 REMEDIATION 29 TAGS OUT OF INDESIGN Form is not yet interactive. Missing H1 tag. Tags are deeply nested. Parent tags are not organizing the document in a meaningful way. Tags present for graphic content that can be turned to artifact.

30 REMEDIATION 30 TAGS AS GENERATED BY ACROBAT Fields have been added and were tagged successfully. Still no H1 tag. Reading order of field label text and form fields is incorrect. Form tags are grouped together and out of sequence. Multiple field labels are contained in a single tag.

31 REMEDIATION 31 REMEDIATED FORM Document is neatly organized in sections. H1 tag is present. All form fields are tagged and organized properly with field label text. All image have alternate text. Graphics that do not convey information have been converted to artifacts.

32 REMEDIATION 32 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY TOOLS Autotag Document tags the entire document, if the document is already tagged it will prompt user to retag. Autotag Form Fields is available for tagged file with new form fields manually added. We have not seen this work successfully. Identify Form Fields attempts to apply fields to the document. Set Alternate Text will walk the user through all Image/Figure tags that don t have alternate text and allow it to be filled. Reading Options and Setup Assistant provide tools for setting up document Accessibility preferences.

33 REMEDIATION 33 TOUCH UP READING ORDER TOOL The Touch Up Reading Order tool can be accessed from the Tools > Accessibility panel. This allows the user to select content by zone and assign it to a specific tag role.

REMEDIATION 34 TOOLS AVAILABLE IN THE ACROBAT TAGS PANEL New Tag creates a new parent tag with assigned roles such as Paragraph, Form, Link, Heading, etc.

34 REMEDIATION 34 TOOLS AVAILABLE IN THE ACROBAT TAGS PANEL New Tag creates a new parent tag with assigned roles such as Paragraph, Form, Link, Heading, etc. Find Tag from Selection allows the user to highlight text and find the associated tag quickly and easily. Create Tag from Selection allows the user to highlight specific text and create a single tag containing only that text. Tag Annotations - When this is selected, tags are created for new form fields as they are added to the document. This does not work when auto generating fields. Highlight Content - When this is selected the content of a tag is highlighted on the PDF page when it is selected in the tag panel.

35 REMEDIATION 35 FIND CONTENT TO TAG The Find tool on the Tags Panel allows the user to find and tag untagged content by type. This is often used to tag Form Fields which are added after the document is tagged or to find Unmarked Content that can be converted to Artifact.

36 COMMON PROBLEMS OUT OF MS WORD 36 MERGED FIELD LABELS MS Word documents often have individual field labels merged in the tagged output. Tagging with Acrobat after fielding often results in non-tabular data formatted as tables and/or field label text still merged into a single tag. Both methods require some manual remediation.

37 37 VERIFICATION Remediation

38 LIVECYCLE ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER 38 CHECKING YOUR FORMS IN LIVECYCLE LiveCycle s Accessibility checker is only available in ES4 version The checker is nested under Tools > Macros and offers a list of options.

39 LIVECYCLE ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER 39 LIVECYCLE REPORT LiveCycle runs a Macro which produces a PDF report with warnings at the object level for the form, pages and fields.

40 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY 40 CHECKING YOUR FORMS IN ACROBAT Acrobat s Accessibility Checker and Report features can be found in the Tools > Accessibility Menu. These features provide a full report and even quick links to fix some common problems.

41 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY 41 ACROBAT RECOGNITION REPORT The Recognition Report is displayed by default when the Full Check is complete. Listed items can be clicked to link to the specific document location with the tagging issue.

42 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY 42 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER The Accessibility Checker provides a categorized list of any outstanding issues. It also provides quick links to fix some common problems.

43 ACROBAT ACCESSIBILITY 43 ELEMENTS REQUIRING MANUAL VERIFICATION Certain elements will always require manual check by an experienced user. Forms can pass the Accessibility Checker and still not be considered fully functional by visually impaired users.

44 44 QUESTIONS? Jeanne Millet Petty Appligent Document Solutions

Accessible Document Practices in Adobe Acrobat

Accessible Document Practices in Adobe Acrobat Todd M. Weissenberger, University of Iowa Adobe Acrobat lets you create documents in Portable Document Format (PDF) from a variety of sources. Acrobat PDFs