WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: MSWord forms accessibility

for

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Jun 10, 2011 6:00AM

Karlen,
Yes usually form fields get stripped out using a converter, however
PAWS keeps the controls as long as they are that legacy type vs the
new one. PAWS runs your doc through a checklist and the controls too,
letting you check/see what a screen reader will speak. Then it
converts it to a PDF. I haven't used CommonLook yet (don't ask why),
however PAWS is a Word to 508/accessible PDF add in to Word.
CommonLook is a tool for Acrobat. People at work have CommonLook and
want to pull their hair out somedays -- but they aren't the most
technical people. Since I haven't used it I cannot judge their
opinions.

--
Ryan E. Benson



On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 7:05 AM, Karlen Communications
< <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> Normally you can't add the Word form controls to the Word document and
> convert it to PDF retaining the Word form controls. The form controls for a
> PDF document usually have to be added in either Acrobat or LiveCycle
> Designer. Word can be used to design the layout of a form. Does the
> NetCentric tool keep the Word form controls when converting to tagged PDF?
> Is this the PAWS tool? Can that form then be validated in either Acrobat or
> CommonLook?
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Ryan E. Benson
> Sent: June-10-11 12:30 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] MSWord forms accessibility
>
> While it pains me to say it, your best bet is to design in Word  and export
> it to PDF. As I mentioned before, the best tool for this is NetCentric's
> PAW. Currently, you need to use the legacy text boxes versus the new types
> for them to be seen by PAW and to be put into the PDF. While I haven't dug
> into it much, the new "textboxes" aren't actual textboxes but are simply
> placeholders that vanish.
>
> --
> Ryan E. Benson
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Hoffman, Allen < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>> It sure would be nice to have real testing tools for this kind of thing.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Debbie Malone [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 7:55 AM
>> To: WebAIM Discussion List
>> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] MSWord forms accessibility
>>
>> I didn't realize that the content controls were not accessible. I
>> don't use JAWS myself, but all the articles I read said to use them. I
>> mistakingly assumed that the ToolTip did not work. I will definitely
> change them over to legacy controls.
>> Thanks for the info.
>>
>> Debbie Malone
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>