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From: Diana Grappasonno
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2019 2:57PM
Subject: Proper nesting of <Form> tags in PDF's? (Further clarification)
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Thanks to all who replied to my message! I have some huge forms to
remediate and I want to be sure I get this right. One more follow-up
question that I'm struggling with:

What is the correct placement of tagged form elements in PDF's?

CommonLook says to place the annotation (associated text?) inside the Form
tag. The Adobe Accessibility Series says to nest the Form tags inside the
<P> tag with the associated text. And a comment on an Acrobat Users group
says to put the Form tag next to the <P> (not nested).

I think (maybe) this is what CommonLook says to do:

<P>

Unrelated text before form element

<Form>

Name text

Name - OBJR


-------
This is what Adobe says to do:

<P>

Name text
<Form>

Name - OBJR

-------
This is what poston user group says to do:

<P>

Name text
<Form>

Name - OBJR



Thanks very much in advance!
Diana G

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2019 3:46PM
Subject: Re: Proper nesting of <Form> tags in PDF's? (Further clarification)
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I've always nested the <Form> Tag in the <P> Tag with the question it is
associated with. That way, as I do my QA, I can tell that both the question
and <Form> Tag are together in their logical reading order.

<P>
Question text
<Form>

Or
<P>
Question Text
Yes
<Form> (Radio button for Yes button)
No
<Form> (Radio button for No)
<P> (next question

Never heard of the other techniques you mentioned. Hmmmm.

Cheers, Karen

From: chagnon
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2019 9:08PM
Subject: Re: Proper nesting of <Form> tags in PDF's? (Further clarification)
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Same for me, as Karen and Adobe described.

Additional comment:
The OBJR is nested inside the <Form> tag, not following after it.

Essentially, when you're checking the PDF's tag tree, you should be able to
click on a <P> tag and have it highlight everything associated with that
item (or "chunk" of information as I tell students in my PDF forms class).
That includes:
The body text before the form field, usually the visible printed label, such
as "Address" or instructions.
The <Form> tag that holds the form field itself.
The OBJR sub-tag that adds the keyboard accessibility.

One benefit we've found from this method: it minimizes "form field trapping"
where someone who uses A T hops from form field to form field, missing
critical information that's in the body text portion of the PDF, such as
detailed instructions and informative labels.

I don't think the visible printed body text label should ever go after the
<Form> tag as shown in one of your examples; that's not a very informative
way to convey information to the user.

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