E-mail List Archives
Thread: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)
From: Carolyn Dudas
Date: Thu, Jun 09 2016 12:08PM
Subject: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
No previous message | Next message →
I'm working with staff to help them make their Word documents accessible.
Most of the Word documents are forms which are meant to be printed and
completed by hand. By forms, I mean that there are fields which are
followed by what appears to be a solid line, but in actuality is just the
underscore character repeated multiple times. For instance, there are
fields called "First Name" and "Last Name" which are followed by a series of
underscore characters. Example: First Name__________________ Last
Name________________.
Also, there is an essay question on the form. Again, the author originally
typed the underscore character multiple times (for a total of 9 lines) so
that someone can write their response. Example:
"Why would you be a good candidate for this
program?"To make this document accessible for a person reading it via a screen
reader, I've advised staff to use a leader tab formatted with an underscore
rather than typing the underscore multiple times. Is the leader tab the
recommended method for creating underlines for this type of form?
Is this OK in terms of accessibility --- can a screen reader correctly read
the document?
Recommendations would greatly be appreciated.
I'd especially like if someone who is proficient in using a screen reader or
uses one daily could actually "read" my sample document to see if it's
accessible. If you are willing to do this, please let me know offline and
I'll send it to you as an attachment. Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------------
Carolyn Dudas
From: Joseph Sherman
Date: Thu, Jun 09 2016 12:27PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
You should redo the Form completely using Form Fields so users can fill the form on the computer. This is critical for visually impaired users, but also makes life much easier for everyone who can fill the form online even if they have to print it for some reason. What you are referring to are not really forms per se. In this day requiring users to print and fill a "form" by hand is outdated and something I'm working on getting rid of at my school where possible.
The easiest way to do this is generally to create the form in html on a web page. This also can allow for direct submission if appropriate. If for some reason that is not possible, you can with some effort create an accessible PDF form.
The information below is what I use to create PDF Forms:
"Accessible PDF forms require multiple steps. In addition to following general PDF accessibility principles, the following four steps are required to ensure the accessibility of a PDF form:
1. Add the correct form fields to the PDF. This can be accomplished by creating a PDF form from scratch within Acrobat or by adding form fields to an existing PDF.
2. Include an accessible label that describes the purpose of the form control to a screen reader. This is provided through the Tooltip.
3. Add tags to the form fields.
4. Check, and if necessary repair, the tab order.
Good guides for content creators include:
Accessible Forms in Acrobat XI from WebAIM<http://webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/forms>; , Creating Accessible PDF Forms Using Adobe Acrobat Pro<http://www.washington.edu/accessibility/documents/pdf-forms/>;, and Creating accessible PDF forms with Acrobat Pro DC<https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/creating-accessible-pdf-forms-with-acrobat-pro-dc>
Here's an earlier discussion from this listserv about PDF forms:
"Be aware that in order for the form controls to be accessible, once you've built the accessibility into the form controls/fields themselves, you THEN Tag the document. You don't add form controls/fields to an already tagged PDF. If you are using a Word document as a template, this is the ONLY time you use Print to PDF to create an untagged PDF. You open the untagged PDF in acrobat Pro and begin adding the form controls. (Unless the document is a scanned document, in which case you perform the text recognition first.)
Here is the hierarchy of tasks that Adobe established years ago and I advocate that clients use:
1. Is the PDF a scanned document? If yes, perform Text Recognition.
2. Is the PDF document a fillable form? If yes, then add the "accessible" form controls/fields.
3. Does the PDF document have links? If yes, then use the Create Links from URL's tools and the Links tool to add them.
4. Does the PDF document have multimedia? If yes, then add the multimedia. I would add that the multimedia itself must be accessible and.
Only THEN do you add Tags to the document and then go through the remediation and/or Quality Assurance process. So the list of basics for the document are the same, but since you are adding another element, the form controls/fields also have to be accessible.
Note you CAN add accessible form fields to many already tagged documents. Admittedly it's more work because you have to had the Form OBJR for each field manually via (tags > find > unmarked annotations) but IMO it can be done. In fact, if you check the "tag annotations" item on the tags options menu the form OBJ will be added to the currently selected tag in the tree automatically when you insert the form field. So you would then need to create the form tags and then select them before creating each form field and then you would have tagged accessible form fields after you supply tooltips."
"
Joseph
From: Krack, Joseph
Date: Thu, Jun 09 2016 12:35PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
Carolyn,
I would recommend making this an accessible PDF form. It is possible to make an accessible Word form, but the limit of 138 characters in the Help Text would really make this impossible.
Someone using a screen reader may hear something that is easier on the ear if you change the way you make the lines, but they still would be unable to fill it in. All forms can be printed and filled in by hand, and I would encourage that all forms be made to be accessible.
I am working on creating a new training for creating accessible forms, but when I was with the Department of Rehabilitation I put together a short booklet on creating accessible forms in Word and PDF that you can take a look. Please let me know if you find the booklet useful, or if you have any questions. (http://www.dor.ca.gov/DisabilityAccessInfo/How-do-I-Construct-Accessible-Documents.html)
I hope this helps.
Joe Krack
Manager, Accessibility and Policy Unit
ADA Coordinator, Department of Social Services
744 P Street, MS T8-4-70
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 651-5647 (direct)
From: Tyllick,Cliff S (DADS)
Date: Thu, Jun 09 2016 2:58PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
Joe, your approach is similar to "Creating Accessible Microsoft Word Forms the DARS Way": http://accessibility.hhs.texas.gov/docs/word/WordFormsDARSWay.docx
Also available on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oimoTFdXKLo&feature=youtu.be
The DARS Way offers two ways around the 138-character limit.
First, the Help Text property for a form control in Word offers two fields for content:
- Status Bar has room for 138 characters. Anything entered here is automatically announced by the screen reader when the form control accepts focus.
- Help Key (F1) has room for another 213 characters. If this field contains anything--even a blank space--the screen reader should announce "Press F1 for Help" as soon as it finishes announcing the contents of the Status Bar.
So between those two fields, you have room for 351 characters. There is a bit of art to separating the information when it runs over 138, but it usually isn't hard to find a reasonable approach.
The second method is not my favorite, but it does work for many people. When 351 characters isn't enough, the DARS Way is to add more text input controls and use their Status Bar and Help Key fields as a container for the rest of those instructions. Of course, this has a few problems:
- As a text input, this container will accept keystrokes. Information entered here should get ignored, but if the user presses a key for a character, it will populate this input.
- You have to hide this container from people who can see.
The DARS Way offers a simple workaround to let people who cannot see know that they should not enter text in this form input: start the contents of the Status Bar with "Info." This gives them a clue to ignore the "Edit" prompt announced by the screen reader after it has announced the Status Bar.
In the DARS Way, you can hide these additional text inputs--I'll call them Info fields--from the visual interface by making them narrow. In the properties of the Info field, set Maximum Width to 1 character. (If you set it to 0 characters, Word will skip right past the field. With or without a screen reader, you won't know it's there.)
To make the Info field become a sliver, select it and change the font size to 1 point. (You will have to key the "1" in; the lowest you can select is 8 point.) While you're in the Font interface, you can reduce the Info field to a pinpoint by making the font super- or subscript, too.
Unfortunately, hiding the Info fields doesn't give us fewer problems. It just changes the nature of the problem. When a document is set up to be completed as a form in Word, it's protected so the user can change only the content and state of the form controls. To move from field to field, you must press the tab key.
So you open the form, and the focus is in an Info field--not "Name," or whatever your first actual form field is. If you start typing, you will see no change--unless your eyes are very sharp--and you will hear a beep or see a flash when you enter more than the maximum number of characters the Info field will accept.
If there is a lot of text, you might have to press the tab key several times before a real form input takes focus. You will have to stay alert to make sure you are always entering information in a real field--and that it's the right field.
If you can't see well, it can be that much more frustrating to have to press the tab more than once to skip from one field you must complete to the next.
And that's why Joseph suggested you use PDF or HTML.
Cliff
Cliff Tyllick
EIR Accessibility Coordinator
Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS)
512-438-2494
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Fri, Jun 10 2016 12:18PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
Carolyn,
The changes you make will also make it possible for those who are sighted and/but are using speech recognition software. My sense or experience is that online forms are the easiest to fill-in but probably much more involved on the backend, involving developers or database management, than just issuing Word or PDF-based forms.
Gary
From: Jon Metz
Date: Tue, Jun 14 2016 8:53AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
Completely shameless plug here, but I made a series of videos to take a Word document and turn it into a PDF/UA compliant PDF (https://youtu.be/BeFt-Qa3mjM?list=PLmfVOnJxeSEXsEKv2i20nYMHYuFEcl4fO). However, you could ignore the last video unless there's a requirement to do that, or you need a way to validate that it works as an accessible PDF. Up to the 3rd video explains how to make a tagged document and make it as accessible as possible before going all out compliant.
The first video goes through what's necessary to make the Word file as accessible as possible. I'd avoid adding forms in Word first before moving to PDF, because more headaches happen in the translation to PDF.
I'm still getting around to editing the last video which goes over testing, but I did a short session on it for ID24 you can check out here: https://youtu.be/1CCQ5TGlM0I?list=PL95LOQw9SLWxmcZtzBiFuT9HAJKFJnl2n. Just know that in order to validate accessibility, you would have needed to suffer through all 4 of those videos.
Once you're in the 3rd video, simply refer to Adobe's guidance on creating an accessible form in Acrobat (http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/acrobat/creating-accessible-forms.html) or Joseph's tutorial (which I haven't looked at yet). Hope this helps you.
Cheers,
Jon Metz
On 6/10/16, 2:18 PM, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = on behalf of = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>Carolyn,
>
>The changes you make will also make it possible for those who are sighted and/but are using speech recognition software. My sense or experience is that online forms are the easiest to fill-in but probably much more involved on the backend, involving developers or database management, than just issuing Word or PDF-based forms.
>
>Gary
>
>
From: Carolyn Dudas
Date: Tue, Jun 14 2016 9:02AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | Next message →
Thanks, Jon, and to everyone for their suggestions.
----------------------------------------------------------
Carolyn Dudas
>
From: Karlen Communications
Date: Tue, Jun 14 2016 9:04AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Word Docs - Need Help
← Previous message | No next message
I recommend Jon's videos! They are a great starting point.
I agree that the form controls shouldn't be added in word!
Cheers, Karen