PDF Remediation

• Open up Table Editor in Adobe by selecting a Table Tag in the tag tree, right-clicking on it, and selecting “Table Editor” 
• To make sure cell types are shown (TH or TD), right-click on the Table in the document and select “Table Editor Options” and make sure “Show cell type” under “Label Option” is selected 
• To indicate that certain cells in the Table should be Headers, right-click on the particular cell that should be a Header, then select “Table Cell Properties” and make sure “Header Cell” is selected under Type. Then, under “Scope,” select “Row” or Column” as appropriate. 
• If working with a complex table, you can assign “Row Span” or “Column Span” after assigning Scope to identify how many columns that particular Header Cell spans in the Table 
• Please note that Microsoft Word does not have any concept of row headers. Whenever a table is created with both column and row headers, the row header tags need to be manually corrected.  

One of the fundamental principles of digital accessibility is the use of alternative text for images. Below are ways to check for and edit alternative text: 

• To change it per image, right-click on the “Figure” tag in the tag tree. Select “Properties.” In the “Tag” tab, there is a field for “Alternate Text” that can be filled in. 
• To edit figures or images sequentially, select “Accessibility” from the righthand menu (see Setup above if you don’t see this). Select the option to “Set Alternate Text.” Acrobat will go through the document and identify each figure and prompt filling in “alternate text” or marking them as “decorative figures” 
• Purely decorative elements, e.g., a line break or a page number box, should be marked as “Decorative Figures”—meaning they will be ignored by assistive technology

Artifacts are content that does not represent meaningful content or appears as a background, e.g., decorative or formatting items, that, if tagged appropriately, will not be read by a screen reader. 

One common error in a Word document is to use blank lines to create space between paragraphs instead of using paragraph spacing. But unless the blank line is tagged as an artifact, it will be read by screen readers as “blank” or “blank line.” To fix this in Word, use appropriate paragraph styling in the source document rather than using the Enter key to create space between paragraphs. 

To tag artifacts appropriately in Acrobat: 

1. Select the tag in question in the PDF document
2. Use the keyboard shortcut Shift+Control+U to open the Reading Order tool 
3. Select “Background/Artifact” in the Reading Order tool 
4. This will remove the tag from both the Reading Order view and the tag tree

If indentation is used to create a list instead of bullet points or numbers, screen readers will not read these items as one list.

To fix lists in Acrobat, add a list tag to the tag tree: 

1. Select the tag that you want to add the new tag after
2. Right-click and choose New Tag
3. The type of Tag would be “List” (<L>)

To add tags to the items to the list: Tag them as List Items and move items so they are nested under the List tag and make them child tags of the List tag

To make an item a “Child Tag” of another tag – right click on the child tag, select “Cut,” select the “Parent” tag, right-click, and select “Paste Child” 

The bullet characters or numbers that indicate the list item should have Label tags added to them: 

1. To tag appropriately, select the text you want to tag, right-click and select “Reading Order” 
2. If Label is not available, then select “text/paragraph” in the Reading Order tool
3. Select the “text/paragraph” tag in the Tags panel, right-click and select “Properties” 
4. Under the “Type” dropdown menu, select “Label.” 

The actual text in the list item should be tagged with “List Item Body” tags. 

1. Select the tag you want to change, right-click, and select “Properties.” 
2. Under the “Type” dropdown menu, select “List Item Body.” 

Make sure to nest your “Label” and “List Item Body” tags underneath the correct “List Item” tag. 

Scanned documents often appear as having no tags or selectable text. Follow the steps below to remediate these types of documents:

1. Open the “Action Wizard” (see Setup) and from the list, select “Make Accessible.” The “Make Accessible Action Wizard” walks you through the steps to make a PDF accessible.  
2. Select the blue “Start” button. 
3. To fill in the Document Description fields, uncheck the “Leave As Is” box below the prompt, and fill in text as appropriate – for “Title,” “Subject,” “Author,” and “Keywords.” 
4. Under “Recognize Text,” select the document language, and the “output” should be “Editable Text and Images.” 
5. Next, Adobe will ask if this document is intended to be used as a fillable form so that it knows whether or not to detect form fields in the document. 
6. Adobe will also ask to “set reading language,” whether or not you want to “autotag document,” and detect any figures in the document that may require alternative text (see Figures, above). 
7. The last step in the Make Accessible Action Wizard is to run an Accessibility Checker. It will run through the document and highlight issues that need to be manually checked and addressed. 
8. The Accessibility Checker is also available from the Accessibility Wizard → Full Check. 
9. The Make Accessible Action Wizard does not make your document fully accessible, but it gets you on your way to figuring out what the issues are. 

Make sure the shortcut to the "Prepare Form" tool is also visible. If it is not visible on the righthand side of the document, select Tools at the top of the screen and search for “Prepare Form.” Click Add to add the shortcut to this Tool to the right side of the document. 

A key best practice when it comes to forms is to use only Acrobat Pro to create interactive form fields. When using Microsoft Word to create a document that will become a PDF form, don’t use Word’s interactive form fields. Do not add radio buttons, checkboxes, or text boxes. Instead, focus on creating an accessible source document that visually identifies form fields with labels, preferably to the left of the form field, blanks, ample space, and then create the PDF using the PDFMaker add-on. It is significantly easier and has fewer steps to create a document in Word and then add the form features in Acrobat later. 

The Untagged Method

Starting with a PDF document that was created in Word and converted to PDF. Any existing tags should be deleted from the Tags panel.  

Note: If you edit a document’s original tags and then tag the form fields, your work can be overwritten. You will get better results if you do all your form field work and then add the tags to your PDF at once. So the first step to creating an interactive form is to delete any existing Tags. 

To delete Tags, navigate to the Tags panel. Right-click on the topmost Tag that says “Tags” and select “Delete tag.” That removes all Tags from the document. The Tags panel should read “No Tags Available.” 

After deleting the tags from the document, add the form fields. In the righthand side of the document in the Toolbar, select the Prepare Form tool. 

The Prepare Form screen appears, asking “to begin select a file, scan a document, or start from scratch.” The file you had open that is active should appear selected below this prompt. If it isn’t, then you can Browse to select it.  

• It is advised NOT to check the box “This document requires signatures” as it may affect some property options for your form which may be important for accessibility. 
• Make sure the “Form Field auto Detection” is “ON.” If it isn’t, select “Change” and switch it to “ON.”  
• Then select the blue “Start” button. Adobe will attempt to add form fields based on the layout of the document. Keep in mind this is automatic and so not always accurate. 

Read through your document and make sure all the necessary form fields are present, and that there are no unnecessary form fields that Adobe may have added by mistake. 

To delete a form field that may not be necessary, right-click on the field in the PDF document and select “Delete” from the menu that appears.  

To add any form fields manually, navigate to the Prepare Form ribbon at the top of the document and you can select any of the form fields there such as Text Fields, Radio Buttons, Drop Downs, etc. Select the form field you would like and then click on the place in the document where you would like it to appear. 

• In the top right side of the document, you can see options to position the Form Fields: “ALIGN,” “CENTER,” “MATCH SIZE,” and “DISTRIBUTE.” 

If Adobe selected the wrong type of form field e.g. a Text field when it should have been a Choice Box or Radio Button, please note that there is not a way to change an existing field type to another field type. Instead, delete the existing field type and then add the correct field type manually. 

Set or verify properties for each form field. Selecting a field in the document turns it blue, indicating that it is active. Double-clicking on a field opens up a Properties menu for that field. You can also right-click on the field and then select Properties. 

• To be accessible, every form field should have a Name and a Tooltip set for it. These are located in the General tab of the Properties menu. 
• The Name of the form field should be the same as the visible label/text on the form. 
• The Tooltip could be the same as the Name, or could be used to provide further context or instructions for that form field, for example, a certain Date format. 

Review the Tab order for your form fields. The list of form fields present in the document appears in the Prepare Form sidebar, on the bottom righthand side of the document, under the header “FIELDS.” 

• This Fields pane shows the Tab order, or the order in which a user will progress through the form when using the Tab key of the keyboard. 
• Review this order and drag any fields that may be out-of-order to the correct place. They should be listed in the same order that they appear visually in the document. 
• Keep in mind that any fields added manually will appear at the bottom of this Fields pane, so will need to be dragged to their correct place in the document. 

Preview the form by selecting “Preview” in the top right corner of the Prepare Form ribbon at the top of the document. Preview allows you to navigate through the document and fill things out. 

• If you did fill out anything in the form in Preview mode, be sure to Clear Form by going back to “Edit,” and then under the Prepare Form sidebar, select “More” (located underneath “Match Size” and “Distribute”) and select “Clear Form.” 

Once you’re ready with all the form field configurations, it is time to add Tags to the PDF document. 

• In the lefthand side of the document, select to make visible the Tags navigation pane (looks like a luggage tag). 
• Right-click on where it says “No Tags Available” and select “Add Tags to Document.” Adobe will autotag your document. 
• Review and ensure these tags are correct. 

For forms, form fields should follow this tagging format: 

• Paragraph tag (<p>) 
• Tag with name of visual text label of the field (e.g. Date) 
• Form field tag (<Form>) which is nested underneath the paragraph tag, but on the same level as the visual text label tag
• As a child of the <Form> tag, nested underneath it, a tag with “Field Name – OBJR” e.g. “Date – OBJR” (object reference)