| 9 Acrobat 9 Pro PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow

This discussion limits itself to the accessibility issues involved with PDF forms. For a more detailed

discussion of forms, refer to the Adobe Acrobat 9 Online Help.

PDF Form Fields

A PDF form created with Acrobat can contain the following types of fields:

• Text field. Lets the user type in text, such as name, address, or phone number.

• Check box. Presents yes-or-no choices for individual items. If the form contains multiple

check boxes, the user can typically select as many or few of these as needed.

• Radio button. Presents a group of choices from which the user can select only one item.

All radio buttons with the same name work together as a group.

• List box. Displays a list of options the user can select. You can set a form field property

that enables the user to Shift-click or Control-click to select multiple items on the list.

• Combo box. Lets the user either choose and item from a pop-up menu or type in a value.

• Button. Initiates a change on the user’s computer, such as opening a file, playing a sound,

or submitting data to a web server. These buttons can be customized with images, text, and

visual changes triggered by mouse actions. Action buttons have a different purpose than

radio buttons, which represent data choices made by the user.

• Digital signature field. Lets the user electronically sign a PDF document with a digital

signature.

• Barcode. Encodes the input form selected fields and diplays it as a visual pattern that can

be interpreted by decoding software or hardware (available separately).

Use Acrobat to Detect and Create Interactive Form Fields

You can convert an existing electronic document (for example a Word, Excel, or PDF document) or scan a

paper document to a PDF form, and then add interactive form fields to the form.

When you convert a document to an Acrobat form, Acrobat can detect the form fields in the document. In

many instances, Acrobat will use the form field labels to name the field and provide a Tooltip. While the

results are often acceptable, this is not a foolproof process. You will need to examine the document carefully

to verify that Acrobat accurately detected the fields and labelled them appropriately.

Acrobat Form Wizard

You can use the Form Wizard in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro or Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended to create

interactive forms from an existing electronic document (for example a Word, PDF, or Excel document) or

scan a paper form into a PDF form.

• Choose Forms > Start Form Wizard.

This displays the Create or Edit Form Dialog. From the Create or Edit Form Dialog, do one of the following,

and then follow the on-screen instructions.

• To convert an existing electronic document (for example Word or PDF) to a PDF form, select An

Existing Electronic Document. This places the document in Form Editing Mode.

• To scan a paper form and convert it to a PDF form, select A Paper Form. The form will be scanned

and placed in Form Editing Mode.

• To use LiveCycle Designer to create a form from scratch or from one of the available templates,

select No Existing Form.

Note: Using the Adobe LiveCycle Designer, included in Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Acrobat

Pro Extended for Windows, to create accessible PDF forms is beyond the scope of this Best

Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro