Instructions For Creating Accessible Forms In MS Word
- From: "Therese Gardner" <thewhitecane2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Listserve" <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 17:03:47 +0000
Hello Everyone:
These are the instruction that I got off the Freedom Scientific Web Site.
Enjoy. They seem pretty straight forward, but as I mentioned, I have had
problems.
What can I say, a tech I ain't.
Good Luck,
Therese
Creating Accessible Forms in MS Word
JAWS for Windows 4.51
Date Posted: 05/06/2003
Question:
Creating Accessible Forms in MS Word.
Answer:
With the instructions below, you will be able to develop easy-to-use forms.
There are several advantages to developing
your forms using the Forms tool provided
by Word:
List of 4 items
" You will develop the forms once, but they will be usable over and over again.
" If you ever need to change/add/remove anything from a form youve already
developed, you can make that change in
moments without having to re-create the
whole form.
" Since the forms will be protected, people filling them out will only be able
to type in the appropriate fields, ensuring that
the forms will print out
properly every time.
" The Add-Help Text that appears each time you tab onto a field makes these
forms readily accessible by a blind person
using JAWS.
Set-up
To create a form in Word, you use the Forms toolbar. Since this is not among
the standard toolbars visible when you first
launch Word, you need to bring up the Forms toolbar. To do this go to the View
menu on the standard menu bar, then
choose the Toolbars submenu, and down arrow to Forms. Press ENTER on
this item to check it and close the menus.
Laying out the Form Content
Your form may have a lot of text that is not directly related to entering data.
This may include instructions on how to fill out
the form, headings, disclaimers, etc. Type in or copy/paste all of the text
that needs to appear on the printed form,
formatting it as appropriate. The edit fields that people move to
in order to fill in data will be put onto the form for you when you use the
options on the Forms toolbar. This will ensure that
users only type in the right places on the form. (The sample below shows the
form context without the edit areas and
checkboxes.)
Sample form 1
Personal Contact Information
First Name: Last Name:
Street address:
City: State: Zip:
Personal Information
SSN: DOB: Sex: Male Female
U.S. citizen: Yes No
Creating an Accessible Text Edit field
A form field is the space a person filling out the form uses to type in text or
response to a question on the form. Usually, a
highlighted area provides a visual marker to show where to fill in this text.
To create an accessible text edit field, do the
following:
List of 8 items
1. Place your cursor at the beginning of the space where you expect a person to
start filling in text. This is usually, but
not always, just to the right of the question on the form.
2. Press ALT to move to the menu bar item File.
3. Press CTRL+TAB until you move to the forms toolbar. JAWS will say Edit box
button.
4. Press ENTER. An edit box appears at your cursor location. (Mouse users,
point and click on the first button of the
toolbar.)
5. Go back to the forms toolbar and choose the Form Fields Options button.
(JAWS says Properties button. ) This brings
up a dialog that lets you change various aspects of the edit box you just
created. For example, you can set default text to
appear in a field or you can limit the number of characters users can type in
the edit field. In fact, if you do this, it
guarantees that users wont type more than you need them to type. For example,
limit the
edit field for State to 2 characters so that users can only fill in a
two-letter state abbreviation. If your cursor is at the
beginning of or in the middle of the edit field you can also press your
Applications key to open a context menu. Then you
can choose Properties from that menu.
6. Press ALT+T (or click on it) to activate the Add Help Text button. This
brings up a multi page dialog that lets you add
a meaningful prompt or tool tip
for the person filling out the form. You land on the Status Bar page tab.
7. Press ALT+T or TAB three times to move to the edit area for adding your own
text, the third radio button called Type
Your Own Text. The text you enter on here will be visible on the Word status
bar and will also be read to a blind person
using JAWS. In most cases, simply type in the same question that
is printed on the form. So if the form reads First name: type first name
(with minimal punctuation and no quotation
marks).
8. TAB to or click on the OK button to exit the Add Help Text dialog, and again
to exit the Text Form Field Options dialog.
You will be placed back in your edit field in the original document.
List of 2 items
" If the question on the form is very wordy, you can copy and paste its text
into the Type Your Own Text edit field to
save extra typing. This field, however, is limited to 138 characters.
" If the question on the form includes abbreviations such as DOB, spell out the
abbreviation (for example, date of birth )
so that the prompt is meaningful.
Creating an Accessible Check Box
A checkbox is a visual symbol that a person filling out the form uses to
indicate a response without typing in text. To
create a checkbox, do the following:
List of 4 items
" Place your cursor where you expect a person filling out the form to place a
checkmark.
" Choose the Check Box button on the Forms toolbar.
" Choose the Form Fields Options button (JAWS says Properties button ) on the
Forms toolbar. This brings up a Tool
Form Field Options dialog that lets
you change various aspects of the checkbox. If your cursor is at the beginning
of or in the middle of the edit field you
can also press your Applications
key to open a context menu. Then you can choose Properties from that menu.
" Press ALT+T to activate the Add Help Text button. This brings up a multi page
dialog that lets you add a meaningful
prompt for the person filling out
the form. Press ALT+T (or choose the third radio button in this group) again to
move to the edit area for adding your own
text. In most cases, to ensure that the prompt is meaningful, you may need to
type a prompt that is not printed on the
form. For example, for a question that has corresponding yes and
no checkboxes, you should type a prompt that is meaningful for each checkbox.
So in our sample form, the prompt for
the Yes checkbox for the question on U.S. citizenship should read, U.S.
citizen? Yes. The prompt for the No checkbox
should read, U.S. citizen? No.
Creating an Accessible Drop-down Field
Example, for Semester you might have Spring, Summer, Fall, etc.
List of 8 items
" From the Forms Toolbar choose the Drop-down Form Field item. (JAWS says
Combo Box Button. )
" You land in the Drop Down Form Fields Option dialog box, in an edit field.
Type in the first value you wish to appear in
your list (i.e. Spring).
" Press ALT+A to activate the Add button and you land back in this field ready
to type in another value (i.e. Fall).
" Continue this process until all values you want are added. If needed you can
tab to the list of values to select a value
and move that item up or down
in the list by using the up or down controls that follow this list. The first
item in the list is the default value.
" Press ALT+T to activate the Add Help Text button.
" Press ALT+T to move to the Type Your Own edit field.
" Type in something like the following: Press ALT+DOWN ARROW to open a menu of
choices. Press UP OR DOWN
ARROW to move through this list and press enter
when you find the correct item.
" TAB to the OK button and activate it. Repeat and you end up back in your
document.
Note: If you have text to the right of the drop-down field, make sure to put at
least three blank spaces between the end
of the field and the first part
of your text following it. This is because a graphic symbol with a down arrow
appears to the right of the field when the
form is protected and ready to be filled out.
Saving the Form
Once you complete laying out the text of the form, creating its edit fields,
and adding the help text for each field, you
need to save it.
First choose the Protect Form button on the Forms toolbar. Once this button is
pressed, you can only move to and edit
data in the fields you created, and you are protected from accidentally
changing any of the text of the form itself.
Note: If you ever need to make changes to the form text itself, you can toggle
the Protect Form button to unprotect the
form and make your changes. When
youre finished, toggle the Protect Form button again to turn protection back
on.
Authors of forms should turn off the Forms toolbar and make sure that the
document is in Print Layout view before saving
the document so that JAWS users
will not need to do this on their own.
Save your form with a meaningful filename (e.g., intake form).
Filling out an Accessible Form
Note: JAWS users, when you open a protected form you may need to set the
document to either Print Layout view, or in
some cases Normal view, and turn off
the Forms toolbar for best reading results.
Open the file and choose Save As to save your form with a meaningful name other
than the original name. This way,
your original blank form stays intact
for repeated use.
Press the TAB key to move forward from one field to another or SHIFT+TAB to
move backwards from one field to
another. Fill in the form as needed and save
again when finished.
Other considerations for using Word effectively.
List of 2 items
" Limit the use of white space.
" Dont use tables for formatting. Tables should be used for tabular data. Use
columns and other native formatting
techniques in Word.
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