moderated form fields in word
Cynthia Bruce
Hi All,
I am using the most recent version of MS Word and JAWS 2020. My department has created what seem to be forms in word, and I keep running into trouble with them. I can read the first few lines, but then it gets hung up when I get to a form field with a lot of information. It just stops reading.
Any ideas about what might be going on?
Thanks,
Cynthia
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Cynthia,
Are you being tasked with looking at forms that others have already filled out? If so, you might want to consider converting the whole form to "straight MS-Word document" format, even if just for the purpose of reading, and not saving the result if it must remain as a fillable form. If it does not need to remain that way after you've received it for processing, and you may need to refer to it later, I'd save the "converted to normal MS-Word document" version for filing purposes. When dealing with fillable Word forms as the person filling them out, unless you have your screen reader echoing character-by-character as you type, you will hear nothing as you fill out a form field. This is a quirk of how these are processed by Word. You've got to complete the filling in, tab to the next field/checkbox/whatever, then Shift+TAB back to get your text that you filled in read. ---------------------------------- What follows presumes the designer of the fillable form did what they should have and imposed editing restrictions such that the original recipient was only able to traverse the fillable parts and interact with them. Also that they did not password protect these settings as well, otherwise you'd have to know the password to complete the removal of editing restrictions. Unprotecting All Word Form Fields and Converting Them to Regular Text 1. You must first remove the restricted editing settings that allow you only to fill out the form a. Activate the Developer Tab, Restrict Editing. ALT+L,PE b. Activate the Stop Protection button, which is the only button. Just Hit Enter c. Close the Restrict Editing pane. CTRL+Spacebar,C 2. Select all content in the document. CTRL+A 3. Issue the command to convert all form fields to regular Word text. CTRL+SHIFT+F9 At this point all form fields will be straight text like the rest of the document, and can be edited just as you usually would. You cannot reverse this action, so be certain you have filled out anything that needs to have been filled out before going through the above steps. --Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Cynthia Bruce
Hi Brian,
These are forms my students have completed. I tried the key commands you listed, but nothing seems to happen.
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Cynthia, Unprotecting All Word Form Fields and Converting Them to Regular Text 1. You must first remove the restricted editing settings that allow you only to fill out the form a. Activate the Developer Tab, Restrict Editing. ALT+L,PE b. Activate the Stop Protection button, which is the only button. Just Hit Enter c. Close the Restrict Editing pane. CTRL+Spacebar,C 2. Select all content in the document. CTRL+A 3. Issue the command to convert all form fields to regular Word text. CTRL+SHIFT+F9 At this point all form fields will be straight text like the rest of the document, and can be edited just as you usually would. You cannot reverse this action, so be certain you have filled out anything that needs to have been filled out before going through the above steps. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Justin Williams
Maybe you can copy and paste it to a fresh notepad document to give you a chance to read it so you know what it says.
Justin
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Cynthia Bruce
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:28 PM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: form fields in word
Hi Brian,
These are forms my students have completed. I tried the key commands you listed, but nothing seems to happen.
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Cynthia, Unprotecting All Word Form Fields and Converting Them to Regular Text 1. You must first remove the restricted editing settings that allow you only to fill out the form a. Activate the Developer Tab, Restrict Editing. ALT+L,PE b. Activate the Stop Protection button, which is the only button. Just Hit Enter c. Close the Restrict Editing pane. CTRL+Spacebar,C 2. Select all content in the document. CTRL+A 3. Issue the command to convert all form fields to regular Word text. CTRL+SHIFT+F9 At this point all form fields will be straight text like the rest of the document, and can be edited just as you usually would. You cannot reverse this action, so be certain you have filled out anything that needs to have been filled out before going through the above steps. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Justin Williams
There should be a way to make the form an accessible document.
Justin
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Cynthia Bruce
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:28 PM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: form fields in word
Hi Brian,
These are forms my students have completed. I tried the key commands you listed, but nothing seems to happen.
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Cynthia, Unprotecting All Word Form Fields and Converting Them to Regular Text 1. You must first remove the restricted editing settings that allow you only to fill out the form a. Activate the Developer Tab, Restrict Editing. ALT+L,PE b. Activate the Stop Protection button, which is the only button. Just Hit Enter c. Close the Restrict Editing pane. CTRL+Spacebar,C 2. Select all content in the document. CTRL+A 3. Issue the command to convert all form fields to regular Word text. CTRL+SHIFT+F9 At this point all form fields will be straight text like the rest of the document, and can be edited just as you usually would. You cannot reverse this action, so be certain you have filled out anything that needs to have been filled out before going through the above steps. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Ann Byrne
Often the cursor is placed at the end of a form. Left arrow often finds the text. then you can use home to get to the beginning. sometimes pressing ctrl+a to select the text makes JAWS speak it. If you are sure there is text, though, arrow left and it might just magically appear.
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Good luck!
At 11:37 AM 11/16/2020, you wrote:
Maybe you can copy and paste it to a fresh notepad document to give you a chance to read it so you know what it says.
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Justin Williams
Would you touch cursor work in this situation?
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If not, then maybe using AIrA would be the way to go.
-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Ann Byrne Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:54 PM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: form fields in word Often the cursor is placed at the end of a form. Left arrow often finds the text. then you can use home to get to the beginning. sometimes pressing ctrl+a to select the text makes JAWS speak it. If you are sure there is text, though, arrow left and it might just magically appear. Good luck! At 11:37 AM 11/16/2020, you wrote: Maybe you can copy and paste it to a fresh notepad document to give you
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Justin Williams
Freedom might be able to assist with making it an accessible form, and I
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thinjk AIRA can also do that. Justin
-----Original Message-----
From: main@jfw.groups.io [mailto:main@jfw.groups.io] On Behalf Of Ann Byrne Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 12:54 PM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: form fields in word Often the cursor is placed at the end of a form. Left arrow often finds the text. then you can use home to get to the beginning. sometimes pressing ctrl+a to select the text makes JAWS speak it. If you are sure there is text, though, arrow left and it might just magically appear. Good luck! At 11:37 AM 11/16/2020, you wrote: Maybe you can copy and paste it to a fresh notepad document to give you
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Cynthia,
Can you send me a blank copy of the document? It is impossible to advise accurately unless I actually know what it is that you're dealing with. It's definitely not a typical fillable form based on what you've said. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Cynthia Bruce
Hi Brian,
Here it is. Apparently it has been updated over the years by many people. When I first opened this it was in protected mode. I was able to read it fine. When I switched to enable editing, I couldn’t read anything.
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Cynthia, Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Cynthia,
You cannot send an attachment to the group, as they get stripped off (or at least they do on the web interface, which is how I read). Please use the Reply to Sender link at the bottom of this message and your e-mail client will open a message addressed to me alone, and attach the document to that. Thanks. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Cynthia,
I have received your example. There are several issues with how it was designed, and at the moment the biggest one was the use of ActiveX controls for the fillable fields and the next one that it is not done as a true fillable form, where the only thing you can touch is those fillable fields. I have to do some additional research on how one goes about converting ActiveX controls to straight text once they've been filled out. So far, I have not found any simple way to do that. I never use ActiveX controls when creating fillable forms, far preferring the legacy form fields, which correspond to what one's used to on webpages, and are far easier to convert to straight text after the form is filled out. I'll let you know what I find if I find it (or don't). -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Cynthia Bruce
This is actually really helpful because I can go to the course designers who seem to have created the forms and tell them what part of the problem is at least. I so appreciate your help.
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On Nov 16, 2020, at 6:56 PM, Brian Vogel <britechguy@...> wrote:
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Cynthia,
Definitely tell them that using Legacy Form Fields would be a big improvement from an accessibility angle. Also, if blind students are expected to fill in this form independently, all of those tables that don't have legacy form controls (most likely text form fields) should have one created in each cell, with appropriate alt-text and help-text, so that they can be navigated and filled out with ease. Here are three examples of MS-Fillable Forms, with editing restricted to filling out fields only, that I have created for prior clients (the Bus Note was actually used in the school office, while the client intake was a "proof of concept" that never made it to completion because the person for whom it was being created dropped out of school). The one for reporting an NVDA Bug was created to make it far easier for someone who cannot see to fill out the required bug report format without accidentally deleting some of the text markers that the developers use to quickly navigate the final bug report. NVDA_Github_Issue_Template.dotx All three, if saved somewhere and double clicked, will open a blank version of the form with the form fields fillable/checkable as needed. Because of how MS-Word handles text fields, you will not hear what you've typed in announced by the screen reader until you tab out of the form field and then shift+tab back in. So, to review a form I generally suggest either doing it as soon as you finish with a text field, by shift-tabbing back in, or by filling out the whole form and then just quickly revisiting all the text fields afterward, as you will now hear whatever you do have in them when you initially land in them. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Jasmine Kotsay
Hi, Brian,
I have a form field question for you. I tried to create an accessible form on my own, but when I tried to print the form with the fields, the help text didn’t print. Do you have any ideas as to why this may be?
Sincerely, Jasmine
From: main@jfw.groups.io <main@jfw.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 3:28 PM To: main@jfw.groups.io Subject: Re: form fields in word
Cynthia, NVDA_Github_Issue_Template.dotx Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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Jasmine,
Help text is not printed because it is not visible. As you know, you add it as part of a control, usually along with alt-text, but that only causes the screen reader to announce the alt-text when you land in the control, or if you hit F1 when sitting in a control. For the sighted, the help text is also shown in the Word "window frame" at the bottom left side or, if they hit F1, as a pop-up. If you actually want what you have as help text for a given form control printed, then you need to add that as visible text to the form itself, usually delimiting it in a smaller point size, using a different color/font/etc., from the main form labels (which, by the way, generally correspond to the alt-text that is announced when you land in a control), and the actual font/point size used in the controls themselves. -- Brian - Windows 10 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 2004, Build 19041 The purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it.
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