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Technical PDF Accessibility Question

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From: McDonald, Jennifer
Date: Jun 8, 2011 1:18PM

Hi all,

I have a question about some specific PDF files that are used on my
website. These files are forms, that are pre-populated with user
information dynamically (using iText). The PDF files are tagged, but
when the information is populated online, that information is not
tagged. I'm not aware of a way to tag an "empty" space in the shell PDF
file. When JAWS 12 first opens the file Adobe opens the Accessibility
Settings Window: Reading Untagged Document. This is the window that
gives you the "Reading Order Options". If I leave this selection
defaulted to the recommended setting (Infer reading order from document)
- the only information read on the PDF file is the text that has been
populated (essentially name, address, phone number, etc). If I change
the selection to "Left-to-right, top-to-bottom reading order" or "Use
reading order in raw print stream" all of the text is read correctly.

If I was a person relying on the screen reader to read this PDF I would
probably choose the recommended setting, and then determine that the PDF
was inaccessible when it was not properly read. I would not think about
changing that selection. It's my goal to have this PDF file work
correctly with default settings, but I'm at a loss. Googling
"pre-populate PDF Accessibility" has gotten me nowhere.

Any ideas or information if anyone has dealt with this before would be
appreciated.

Jeni

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