Chapter 11. Making Forms Accessible

Making a form or any other type of document accessible is to prepare a file with logical structure and tags that can be interpreted by a screen reader and other assistive devices. A screen reader is most commonly a software product that reads a document aloud for people who cannot see the text or have motion limitations that prohibit navigating a document.

The preparation of an accessible document begins with exporting a file to Adobe PDF from an authoring program that supports creating tagged documents. Programs such as the Microsoft Office applications and Adobe InDesign are examples of applications that can export tagged PDF documents. Be aware that the more complex the file in terms of design and page geometry, the more editing you may need to perform to make a document truly accessible.

Fortunately, Acrobat Pro and Pro Extended provide all the tools you need to create tagged PDF documents for accessibility and other tools to polish documents for defining logical reading orders and adding alternate text descriptions for page elements.

In this chapter, we cover creating accessible forms using Acrobat Pro and Pro Extended, adding alternate text for objects, creating tags, and organizing logical reading orders. In addition, we show you how to test your files for accessible features within Acrobat.

Note

All the content in this chapter applies only to ...

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