Adobe Acrobat XI - Manual (Page 449)

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Accessibility, tags, and reflow
Last updated 1/14/2015
Field descriptions
For accessibility, all form fields need a text description (tool tip).
To add a text description to a form field:
1 Select one of the Form tools, and then right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) the form field.
2 Choose Properties from the context menu.
3 Click the General properties tab.
4 Enter a description of the form field in the Tooltip field.
Note: See the related WCAG sections: 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. (Level A), 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A), 4.1.2
Name, role, value
Alternate text
Figures alternate text
Make sure that images in the document either have alternate text, or are marked as artifacts.
If this rule check fails, do one of the following:
• Select Figures Alternate Text in the Accessibility Checker panel, and choose Fix from the Options menu. Add
alternate text as prompted in the Set Alternate Text dialog box.
• Use the Tags panel to add alternate text for images in the PDF.
• Open the Content panel and right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) the content that you want to mark as
an artifact. Then, select Create Artifact from the context menu. (To display the Content panel, choose View >
Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Content.)
Note: See the related WCAG section: 1.1.1 Non-text Content. (A)
Nested alternate text
Screen readers don't read the alternate text for nested elements. Therefore, don't apply alternate text to nested elements.
To remove alternate text from nested elements, do the following:
1 Choose Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags.
2 Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) a nested element in the Tags panel and choose Properties from the
context menu.
3 Remove both the alternate text and the text to which it's applied from the Object Properties dialog box, and then
click OK.
Note: See the related WCAG section: #1.1.1 Non-text Content. (A)
Associated with content
Make sure that alternate text is always an alternate representation for content on the page. If an element has alternate
text, but does not contain any page content, there is no way to determine which page it is on. If the Screen Reader
Option in the Reading preferences is not set to read the entire document, then screen readers never read the alternate
text.
1 Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Mac OS) an item to check.
2 Open it in the Tags panel. (To display the Tags panel, choose View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags.)