Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Overview
Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, the Adobe PDF logo, Creative Suite, LiveCycle, and Reader are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. AutoCAD is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. GeoTrust is a registered trademark of GeoTrust, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Introduction PDF Accessibility Each PDF File is Different Two Workflows for Creating Accessible PDF Files Characteristics of Accessible PDF files
Searchable text Fonts that allow characters to be extracted to text Interactive form fields Other Interactive Features: Buttons, hyperlinks, and navigational aids Document language Security that will not interfere with assistive technology Document structure tags and proper read order Alternative text descriptions
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader Accessibility Features Features for Accessible Reading of PDFs Features for Creating Accessible PDFs The Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide Series PDF Accessibility Overview (this document) Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word Acrobat 9 Pro PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow Using the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat 9 Pro Creating Accessible PDF Forms with Acrobat 9 Pro Acrobat 9 Pro Complete Best Practices for Accessibility
Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
Adobe Acrobat 9 and PDF Accessibility

Introduction

PDF Accessibility
A document or application is accessible if it can be used by people with disabilitiessuch as mobility impairments, blindness, and low visionand not just by people who can see well and use a mouse. Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) make it easier for people with disabilities to use PDF documents and forms, with or without the aid of assistive software and devices such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, and braille printers. Making PDFs accessible tends to benefit all users. For example, the underlying document structure that makes it possible for a screen reader to properly read a PDF out loud also makes it possible for a mobile device to correctly reflow and display the document on a small screen. Similarly, the preset tab order of an accessible PDF form helps all usersnot just users with mobility impairmentsfill the form more easily.
Each PDF File is Different
Not all PDFs are the same. PDF files are created in a variety of ways, from a variety of applications, and for a variety of purposes. In addition to applying the proper accessibility enhancements to PDF documents, achieving your accessibility goals for an individual PDF file requires understanding the nature of the PDF and the uses for which it is intended. Using the guide Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow, you will learn how to assess existing PDF files for certain characteristics which influence their accessibility. The order in which this assessment is conducted is important. By following these procedures in the recommended order, users can efficiently proceed through the analysis of a PDF file in a systematic fashion. Systematically ruling out or confirming certain characteristics which a PDF file may possess will guide you to the most appropriate next step for making an individual PDF accessible. This series also discusses techniques for converting source files to accessible PDF. Using the Adobe PDFMaker with Microsoft Word as an example, this guide provides best practices for designing your source document with accessibility in mind so that the original document can be efficiently transformed into an accessible PDF version. Refer to the guide entitled Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word for complete information. Note: These Best Practices techniques assume the user has access to Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 or Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended for Windows. Adobe Reader 9 and Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard do not have the complete set of tools needed to create and validate PDF documents for accessibility.

Two Workflows for Creating Accessible PDF Files
The PDF format is a destination file format. PDF files are typically created in some other application. What this means is that the author who is concerned with PDF accessibility will be confronted with one of two situations: Individuals working with an existing PDF file will want to know how to edit/update it to be an accessible PDF file. Authors will want to know how to use some other software application, such as a word processing or desktop publishing application, to generate an accessible PDF file from that application if possible.
Characteristics of Accessible PDF files
The Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) is the native file format of the Adobe Acrobat family of products. The goal of these products is to enable users to exchange and view electronic documents easily and
reliably, independently of the environment in which they were created. PDF relies on the same imaging model as the PostScript page description language to describe text and graphics in a device-independent and resolution-independent manner. To improve performance for interactive viewing, PDF defines a more structured format than that used by most PostScript language programs. PDF also includes objects, such as annotations and hypertext links, that are not part of the page itself but are useful for interactive viewing and document interchange. Accessible PDFs have the following characteristics: Searchable text A document that consists of scanned images of text is inherently inaccessible because the content of the document is a graphic representing the letters on the page, not searchable text. Assistive software cannot read or extract the words in a graphic representation, users cannot select or edit the text, and you cannot manipulate the PDF for accessibility. You must convert the scanned images of text to searchable text using optical character recognition (OCR) before you can use other accessibility features with the document. Fonts that allow characters to be extracted to text The fonts in an accessible PDF must contain enough information for Acrobat to correctly extract all of the characters to text for purposes other than displaying text on the screen. Acrobat extracts characters to Unicode text when you read a PDF with a screen reader or the Read Out Loud tool, or when you save as text for a braille printer. This extraction fails if Acrobat cannot determine how to map the font to Unicode characters. Interactive form fields Some PDFs contain forms that a person is to fill out using a computer. To be accessible, form fields must be interactivemeaning that a user must be able to enter values into the form fields. Interactive PDF forms also have a defined tab order allowing users of assistive technology to use the tab key in order to progress from one form field or interactive control in a logical manner. Refer to the document Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible Forms for complete details. Other Interactive Features: Buttons, hyperlinks, and navigational aids Navigational aids in a PDFsuch as links, bookmarks, headings, a table of contents, and a preset tab order for form fieldsassist all users in using the document without having to read through the entire document, word by word. Bookmarks are especially useful and can be created from document headings. Many of these aids can be accessed using the keyboard without relying on the mouse. Document language Specifying the document language in a PDF enables some screen readers to switch to the appropriate language. Security that will not interfere with assistive technology Some authors of PDFs restrict users from printing, copying, extracting, adding comments to, or editing text. The text of an accessible PDF must be available to a screen reader. You can use Acrobat to ensure that security settings dont interfere with a screen readers ability to convert the on-screen text to speech. Document structure tags and proper read order To read a documents text and present it in a way that makes sense to the user, a screen reader or other textto-speech tool requires that the document be structured. Document structure tags in a PDF define the reading order and identify headings, paragraphs, sections, tables, and other page elements. Alternative text descriptions Document features such as images and interactive form fields cant be read by a screen reader unless they have associated alternative text. Though web links are read by screen readers, you can provide more

meaningful descriptions as alternative text. Alternative text and tool tips can aid many users, including those with learning disabilities.
Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader Accessibility Features
Accessibility features in Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9 fall into two broad categories: features to make the reading of PDF documents more accessible and features to create accessible PDF documents. To create accessible PDF documents, you must use Acrobat, not Reader.
Features for Accessible Reading of PDFs
Preferences and commands to optimize output for assistive software and devices, such as saving as accessible text for a Braille printer Preferences and commands to make navigation of PDFs more accessible, such as automatic scrolling and opening PDFs to the last page read Accessibility Setup Assistant for easy setting of most preferences related to accessibility Keyboard alternates to mouse actions Reflow capability to temporarily present the text of a PDF in a single easy-to-read column Read Out Loud text-to-speech conversion. Support for screen readers and screen magnifiers
Features for Creating Accessible PDFs
Creation of tagged PDFs from authoring applications Conversion of untagged PDFs to tagged PDFs from within Acrobat Security setting that allows screen readers to access text while preventing users from copying, printing, editing, and extracting text Ability to add text to scanned pages to improve accessibility Tools for editing reading order and document structure Tools for creating accessible PDF forms
Though Acrobat Standard provides some functionality for making existing PDFs accessible, you must use Acrobat Pro or Acrobat Pro Extended to perform certain taskssuch as editing reading order or editing document structure tagsthat may be necessary to make some PDF documents and forms accessible (See Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product on page3).
Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product Reader 9
Create PDF documents from any application that prints Convert Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Access files to PDF with onebutton ease*

Acrobat 9 Standard

Acrobat 9 Pro

Acrobat 9 Pro Extended

* Windows Only
Introduction Table 1: Features for Creating Accessible PDF Files by Product (Continued) Reader 9
Capture web pages as rich, dynamic PDF files for review and archiving Scan paper documents to PDF and automatically recognize text with optical character recognition (OCR) Save PDF files as Microsoft Word documents, retaining the layout, fonts, formatting, and tables, to facilitate reuse of content Easily create fillable PDF forms from paper or existing files using the Form Wizard Enable users of Adobe Reader (version 8 or later) to fill in and save PDF forms locally Create dynamic XML forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES (included)* Create and validate accessible PDF documents * Windows Only

The Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide Series
To assist those who use Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to create PDF files with the production of content that is accessible to people with disabilities, Adobe Systems has created a series of accessibility guides for Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro.
PDF Accessibility Overview (this document)
The Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Overview details what is meant by accessibility when considering the PDF file format. It distinguishes between the accessibility features of the the file format and the accessibility features of the Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader application and how the features of the software and the file format interact to achieve accessibility for people with disabilities.
Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word
The Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible PDF from Microsoft Word provides an example using Microsoft Word of how to use Acrobats PDFMaker to make accessible PDF files from the
popular word processing application. Some of the techniques apply to the Microsoft Office productivity suite as well, such as PowerPoint presentation graphics program.
Acrobat 9 Pro PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow
The Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow provides a step-by-step method for analyzing existing PDF files and making them accessible based upon that analysis.
Using the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat 9 Pro
The Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Using the Accessibility Checker describes the accessibility checkers for PDF files that are included in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. Even if you generate an accessible PDF file from an authoring application such a word proccessing application or desktop publishing program, you should then follow the steps in this guide in order to identify any items that may have been missed in the initial conversion or to add PDF accessibility features that are not provided by the authoring tool.
Creating Accessible PDF Forms with Acrobat 9 Pro
The guide entitled Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible Forms describes how to use the forms tools within Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro to add descriptions to form fields, tag untagged forms, set the tab order, manipulate tags, and perform other PDF accessibility tasks. These techniques do not apply to PDF forms from Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
Acrobat 9 Pro Complete Best Practices for Accessibility

The complete content of the individual guides is also available as a single, comprehenive document entitled Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Best Practices for Accessibility.

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: Creating Accessible Forms
Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, the Adobe PDF logo, Creative Suite, LiveCycle, and Reader are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. AutoCAD is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. GeoTrust is a registered trademark of GeoTrust, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Contents

Contents Acrobat 9 Pro Accessible Forms and Interactive Documents Introduction PDF Form Fields Use Acrobat to Detect and Create Interactive Form Fields
Acrobat Form Wizard Enter Forms Editing Mode Directly
Create Form Fields Manually Forms Editing Mode
Creating a New Form Field Form Field Properties Tooltips for Form Fields Tooltips for Radio Buttons Editing or Modifying an Existing Form Field Deleting a Form Field
Buttons Set the Tab Order Add Other Accessibility Features
Making PDF Accessible with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
Acrobat 9 Pro Accessible Forms and Interactive Documents

Introduction

Determining if a PDF file is meant to be an interactive form is a matter of visually examining the file and looking for the presence of form fields, or areas in the document where some kind of information is being asked for such as name, address, social security number. Boxes or fields drawn on the page are also typical indications that the document is meant to function as a form. If you want users to be able to complete the form online, rather than resort to printing a paper copy in order to complete the form, then the form is meant to be an interactive form. You can make interactive form fields accessible to vision impaired users and users with mobility challenges by adding fillable fields to the PDF and by properly structuring it. In addition, you can use the Tooltip field property to provide the user with information about the field or to provide instructions. For example, using the Tooltip property value, the screen reader user would hear Check this box if you will be attending the luncheon. Without the tool tip property, a screen reader simply provides the name of the form field (Check Box 1), its type (Check Box), and its state (Unchecked). It would not be clear to someone listening to the form that they are indicating their desire to attend a luncheon. You can have Acrobat Pro detect and create the form fields automatically or you can manually create the necessary fields using Acrobat Pros form tools. This discussion limits itself to the accessibility issues involved with creating form fields with the Acrobat 9 Pro form tools. For a more detailed discussion of PDF forms including forms created with the Adobe LiveCycle Designer, refer to the Acrobat 9 Pro online help.

PDF Form Fields

A PDF form created with Acrobat can contain the following types of fields: Text field. Lets the user type in text, such as name, address, or phone number. Check box. Presents yes-or-no choices for individual items. If the form contains multiple check boxes, the user can typically select as many or few of these as needed. Radio button. Presents a group of choices from which the user can select only one item. All radio buttons with the same name work together as a group. List box. Displays a list of options the user can select. You can set a form field property that enables the user to Shift-click or Control-click to select multiple items on the list. Combo box. Lets the user either choose and item from a pop-up menu or type in a value. Button. Initiates a change on the users computer, such as opening a file, playing a sound, or submitting data to a web server. These buttons can be customized with images, text, and visual changes triggered by mouse actions. Action buttons have a different purpose than radio buttons, which represent data choices made by the user. Digital signature field. Lets the user electronically sign a PDF document with a digital signature. Barcode. Encodes the input form selected fields and diplays it as a visual pattern that can be interpreted by decoding software or hardware (available separately).
Use Acrobat to Detect and Create Interactive Form Fields

You can convert an existing electronic document (for example a Word, Excel, or PDF document) or scan a paper document to a PDF form, and then add interactive form fields to the form.
When you convert a document to an Acrobat form, Acrobat can detect the form fields in the document. In many instances, Acrobat will use the form field labels to name the field and provide a Tooltip. While the results are often acceptable, this is not a foolproof process. You will need to examine the document carefully to verify that Acrobat accurately detected the fields and labelled them appropriately. Acrobat Form Wizard You can use the Form Wizard in Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro or Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended to create interactive forms from an existing electronic document (for example a Word, PDF, or Excel document) or scan a paper form into a PDF form. Choose Forms > Start Form Wizard. This displays the Create or Edit Form Dialog. From the Create or Edit Form Dialog, do one of the following, and then follow the on-screen instructions. To convert an existing electronic document (for example Word or PDF) to a PDF form, select An Existing Electronic Document. This places the document in Form Editing Mode. To scan a paper form and convert it to a PDF form, select A Paper Form. The form will be scanned and placed in Form Editing Mode. To use LiveCycle Designer to create a form from scratch or from one of the available templates, select No Existing Form. Using the Adobe LiveCycle Designer, included in Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended for Windows, to create accessible PDF forms is beyond the scope of this Best Practices Guide.
The Form Wizard completes its analysis of the document, adds any form fields it may detect and places the PDF form in Forms Editing Mode where you can edit the automatically created fields or add additional form fields (See Forms Editing Mode on page 5). During form field detection, Acrobat may have missed some fields or created unneeded fields. It may have also created fields of the wrong type. Please verify the fields and field names on your form. You can select Add New Field on the Forms Editing toolbar to add more fields or right click on the form to edit or delete fields. Enter Forms Editing Mode Directly If you dont want to use the Form Wizard, you can open the file, and place the document in Form Editing Mode directly. From the Acrobat Menu, select Forms > Add Or Edit Fields (Keyboard shortcut is Shift + Ctrl 7). This displays the Add or Edit Form Fields dialog (See Figure 1 Add or Edit Form Fields Dialog on page5) Answering Yes to the Add or Edit Form Fields dialog question Do you want Acrobat to detect form fields for you? results in the automatic detection of form fields prior to placing the document in Form Editing Mode. This is the same as if you had proceeded using the Form Wizard on the current PDF. Acrobat completes its analysis of the document, adds any form fields it may detect and places the PDF form in Forms Editing Mode where you can edit the automatically created fields or add additional form fields (See Forms Editing Mode on page 5). During form field detection, Acrobat may have missed some fields or created unneeded fields. It may have also created fields of the wrong type. Please verify the fields and field names on your form. You can select Add New Field on the Forms Editing toolbar to add more fields or right click on the form to edit or delete fields.

Answering No to the Add or Edit Form Fields dialog question Do you want Acrobat to detect form fields for you? also places the document in Form Editing mode, but does not create form fields automatically. You will have to add the form fields manually. Proceed to the next section, Create Form Fields Manually on page5 for futher information.
Create Form Fields Manually
To add form fields manually you first select Forms > Add or Edit Fields (Keyboard shortcut is Shift + Ctrl 7) and answer No to the question Do you want Acrobat to detect the Form Fields for you? in the resulting dialog (See Figure 1 Add or Edit Form Fields Dialog on page5) This places the document in Forms Editing Mode without automatically creating any fields. You can now add new form fields to the PDF form. Proceed to the next section Forms Editing Mode on page5 for further instruction.
Figure 1 Add or Edit Form Fields Dialog Forms Editing Mode
With the PDF form in Forms Editing Mode, you can add new fields and buttons to the form and edit or delete any existing field or button (See Figure 2 Adobe Acrobat 9 Forms Editing Mode on page6) The Forms Editing Mode changes the Acrobat user interface slightly. A Forms Editing Toolbar provides access to the Select Object tool, the Add New Field button, and the Form Preview button. You can configure the Add New Field button to display the Forms tools on the toolbar instead of the Add New Field button if you prefer. On the right hand side of the Forms Editing Toolbar, are the Distribute Form button and the Close Form editing button. A fields panel appears on the left side of the document. There is a forms menu bar which offers users choices that are mostly restricted to forms editing functions.
Figure 2 Adobe Acrobat 9 Forms Editing Mode
Creating a New Form Field In Acrobat, you create a form field by choosing one of the form tools. For each field type, you can set a variety of options through the form field Properties dialog box. You can access the forms tools one of three ways. You can select Add New Field on the Forms Editing Toolbar to add more fields From the Forms Editing menu you can select Forms > Form Tools (Keyboard accelerator ALT + R + O). This will provide access to the Acrobat form tools. You can right click over the form to present options that allow you to add, edit, or delete fields. On the page, click where you want to add the field to create a field with the default size. To create a field using a custom size, drag a rectangle to define the size of the field. In the Field Name box, type the name of the field and specify if you want the field to be a required field. Acrobat provides a default name based upon the field type and the number of fields drawn on the page. You should choose a name that is relevant and descriptive to make organizing and collecting the data easier (See Figure 3 Field Name Box on page7) To display the Properties dialog box and modify any other field properties, click Show All Properties (See Figure 3 Field Name Box on page7) If you have selected the Keep Tool Selected option in the forms toolbar, the Field Name

The cursor becomes a cross hair.
box doesnt appear after adding a field. Each time you click the page, a new field is added to the form. To exit this mode, press the Esc key or click the Select Object Tool button. To modify the properties of the field, double-click the field.

Figure 3 Field Name Box

To test your form, click the Preview button. Previewing a form allows you to view the form the same way the form recipients will and gives you a chance to verify the form. If you are previewing a form, you can click the Edit Layout button to go back to the Forms Editing mode. Form Field Properties How a form field behaves is determined by settings in the Properties dialog box for that individual field. You can set properties that apply formatting, determine how the form field information relates to other form fields, impose limitations on what the user can enter in the form field, trigger custom scripts, and so forth. You can set a variety of properties for an Acrobat form field, depending on the form field type. The properties for each type of form field are selected on a series of tabs. When you change a property, it is applied as soon as you select another property or press Enter. All the form field types have a General tab, Appearance tab, and an Actions tab. Other tabs appear only in specific types of form fields. The Options tab appears for most form field types but the options available are unique to each type of form field. If you are changing the properties of multiple fields, you can leave the Properties dialog box open. Click on each field to change its properties. Tooltips for Form Fields For accessibility, the Tooltip option on the General tab is important for entering text that will be announced by screen readers. You can make form fields accessible to people with disabilities by adding tags to the PDF and by properly structuring it. In addition, you can use the tool tip form field property to provide the user with information about the field or to provide instructions. For example, using the tool tip property value, the screen reader could say Your first name. Without the tool tip property, a screen reader announces the type and name of the form field (See Figure 4 Adding a Tooltip for Form Fields on page8) If necessary, choose Forms > Add or Edit Fields, and make sure that the Select Object tool is selected. Double-click a selected form field to open the Properties window. In the General tab, type a description into the tool tip box.

The Tooltip also displays text that users may find helpful in filling in the form field. Tooltips appear when the pointer hovers briefly over the form field.
Figure 4 Adding a Tooltip for Form Fields
Tooltips for Radio Buttons To create a set of mutually exclusive Radio Buttons, where only one field can be selected at a time, give each field the same name but different Button values. The Button value is a field in the options tab of the Radio Button Properties dialog To make a radio button accessible, in addition to entering unique text in the Button Value field for each choice, you would enter identical text in the Tooltip field of the General properties tab for each radio button in the group (See Figure 5 Tooltips and Button Values for Radio Button Short Descriptions on page9) For example, you may have a radio button group that asks the question, Are You a Citizen?. You would create two radio buttons. For each button, you would enter the text Are You a Citizen? in the Tooltip field. For one button you would enter Yes in the Button Value field under the options tab, for the other No should be entered in the Button Value field.
Figure 5 Tooltips and Button Values for Radio Button Short Descriptions
Editing or Modifying an Existing Form Field You can access Acrobat form field properties only when you are in editing mode (by choosing Forms > Add Or Edit Fields). You can change the properties for multiple form fields at a time. Open the Properties dialog box using one of the following methods: To edit a single form field, double-click it or right-click/Control-click it and choose Properties. To edit multiple form fields, select the fields that you want to edit, right-click/Control-click one of the selected fields, and choose Properties.
Change the properties on each of the available tabs, as needed. The property is changed as soon as you select another property or press Enter. Click Close to close the Properties dialog box. If you select form fields that have different property values, some options in the Properties dialog box are not available. Otherwise, changes to the available options are applied to all selected form fields. To avoid accidental changes to the form field, select Locked in the lower left corner of the Properties dialog box before you close it. To unlock, click the check box again. Deleting a Form Field With the document in Forms Editing mode, click on the field you would like to delete and do any of the following. Right mouse click and select delete Press the delete key. From the menu, select Edit > Delete (ALT + ED)

You can select multiple fields by holding the Control key as you click on each one.

Buttons

Buttons are most commonly associated with forms, but you can add them to any document. Buttons can open a file, play a sound or movie clip, submit data to a web server, and much more. When deciding on how to initiate an action, remember that buttons offer the following capabilities that links and bookmarks do not: A button can activate a single action or a series of actions. A button can change appearance in response to mouse actions. A button can be easily copied across many pages. Mouse actions can activate different button actions. For example, Mouse Down (a click), Mouse Up (releasing after a click), Mouse Enter (moving the pointer over the button), and Mouse Exit (moving the pointer away from the button) can all start a different action for the same button.
Buttons are an easy, intuitive way to let users initiate an action in PDF documents. Buttons are added the same way as form fields while in Forms Editing mode. They also should be given a name and a Tooltip and their behavior is determined by the actions the user assigns the button on the actions tab of the Button Properties dialog. They also appear in the Tab order tree. See the Adobe Acrobat Help for a complete discussion of PDF fields and buttons.

Set the Tab Order

If a PDF document doesnt have a specified tab order, the default tabbing order is based on the document structure unless the user has deselected the Tab Order option in the Accessibility preferences. You can change the tabbing order after you create the fields. If you are in Forms Editing mode, you can order the tabs by document structure (default), row, or column. You can also choose the order manually by dragging and dropping fields in the Fields panel. If you are not in Forms Editing mode, you can change the page properties to order the tabs by row or column. However, you cant customize the tab order manually.
To change the tab order, first select Order Tabs Manually from the Tab Order button on the Fields panel. Then you can drag and drop fields where you want them within the Fields panel to modify the tab order (See Figure 6 Rearranging Tab Order with the Fields Panel on page11) To assist in determining tab order, you can select Show Tab Numbers from the Tab Order button of the Fields panel (See Figure 6 Rearranging Tab Order with the Fields Panel on page11) In the example shown in Figure 6 on page11 , the check box labelled operating system is in the fifth position. Selecting the entry for operating system in the Forms panel highlights the corresponding field in

the document view. To move it to the second position, drag it up and drop it below the check box for office suite
Figure 6 Rearranging Tab Order with the Fields Panel
Add Other Accessibility Features
This stage includes setting the document language, making sure that security settings do not interfere with screen readers, creating accessible links, and adding bookmarks. There may be other tasks to complete on your file before it can be considered accessible. For a discussion on how to proceed from this point, refer to the document Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Accessibility Guide: PDF Accessibility Repair Workflow.