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Re: Underlines in Forms

for

From: chagnon
Date: Mar 2, 2023 5:15PM

Seconding everything Karen McCall pointed out.
Making a form is so much more than using that blankety-blank automated forms
tool in Acrobat Pro.

One item to add: the reason why the radio button and checkbox characters
become character encoding errors is because MS Word still uses the old ANSI
TrueType font for those glyphs - and that font is not Unicode. (Usually it's
the Symbol or Wingdings font.) Unicode is the font encoding standard
required by all accessibility standards - WCAG, PDF/UA, and EPUB. A better
font to use is Segoe UI Symbol which is Unicode and has the ballot box glyph
(Unicode codepoint 2610) which is interpreted correctly by assistive
technologies.

But as Karen said, it's best not to have those visual glyphs in the form at
all because the Acrobat form field creates the visible shape for those who
are sighted and should also hold the accessibility info needed by those
using screen readers and other A T.

The best program for creating accessible PDF forms is Adobe InDesign, not
Word or even LiveCycle Designer (now known as A E M). The designer has
precise control over placement of every element, can artifact the heck out
of the visual clutter that's not needed, and can include the form fields
themselves in the layout. After exporting, the form often needs little
remediation. For those who need to update a form on a regular basis, it's
worth learning how to create it in InDesign; it's so much quicker to edit a
form in InDesign than in Acrobat.

Karen's class for PDF forms is excellent, if you're starting from a Word
document.
We have an InDesign forms class scheduled for later this spring,
www.PubCom.com

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Bevi Chagnon | Designer, Accessibility Technician | <EMAIL REMOVED>
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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
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Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes
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