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Re: Are PDF forms accessible on Mac?

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From: Paul J. Adam
Date: Apr 16, 2012 6:07PM

Yep you're correct Preview is not reading any PDF tags, no headings, no alt text, no tables, nothing. It does read the text though which is better than Adobe Reader but WOW the state of PDFs on the Mac is terrible!

As far as being it being Apple's choice to not let Adobe Reader be accessible I'm not sure if that make sense. Google Chrome is mostly accessible on the Mac and Mozilla Firefox is working on making their browser accessible now. I don't know the technical complications or limitations of making PDF readers vs. HTML browsers accessible on a Mac but it seems like it would be possible.

I asked someone from Apple at CSUN why MS Office is not accessible on the Mac and they said they can't make their software developers create accessible apps and it's pretty much the developer's (Microsoft's) responsibility.

It's too bad HTML forms can't actually store input data to be saved and attached to emails like PDF, Word, & Excel forms are so frequently used for.

I wonder how blind Mac-only users do their taxes?

Paul J. Adam
Accessibility Evangelist
Deque Systems
<EMAIL REMOVED>
www.PaulJAdam.com
@pauljadam on Twitter

On Apr 16, 2012, at 3:58 PM, Duff Johnson wrote:

> On Apr 16, 2012, at 4:32 PM, Paul J. Adam wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering if anyone on this list has any experience with or knows if PDF forms on the Mac are accessible? Can they be filled out by someone who is blind using VoiceOver? Do accessible, electronically fillable forms work in the Preview App? I tried testing some with Preview that I thought would be accessible and they did not work at all.
>
> Preview is very, very bad when it comes to PDF in all sorts of ways. And yes - accessibility is (one of) those problems.
>
>> I installed Adobe Reader for OS X and it would not read any information in the PDF at all. Using Adobe Reader, VoceOver will not read anything in a PDF, form or not, outside of the close, minimize, zoom button, and the title.
>
> This is Apple's choice (so far as I know). I do not know why they choose this.
>
>> Preview will read PDF files using VoiceOver
>
> My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that VoiceOver does not read PDF tags; it simply regurgitates the content without structure. Can you navigate a list or table using VoiceOver and Preview?
>
>> From some quick testing I'm assuming that PDF files are not accessible to VoiceOver users with Adobe Reader.
>
> It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say: accessible PDFs aren't supported in VoiceOver.
>
> This way you know who is responsible.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Duff Johnson
>
> President, NetCentric US
> ISO 32000 Intl. Project Co-Leader, US Chair
> ISO 14289 US Chair
> PDF Association Vice-Chair
>
> Office: +1 617 401 8140
> Mobile: +1 617 283 4226
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> www.net-centric.com
>
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