Table cells tagged as form fields do not get tagged when using the Articles panel in an accessible PDF file.
If you convert a table cell to a graphic cell and then make it an interactive form field, if you use the Articles panel to control the order, the form fields do not get tagged.
1.) Create a table
2.) Select a cell and choose Table > Convert to Graphic Cell
3.) Open the articles panel and drag the frame containing the table to the Articles panel to create a new article.
4.) Enable "Use for Reading order in tagged PDF" from the Articles panel menu.
5.) Export to interactive PDF with tags enabled.
Result: If you open the PDF and look in the tags pane or run the Accessibility Checker, you'll get errors that the form fields are not tagged.
Workaround: If you cut the interactive form field and paste as inline within the cell, it exports properly and is tagged. This should not be necessary and makes a lot of extra work.
Chad Chelius
shared this idea
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Alex Dolan
commented
Thank you, this helped a lot. Still have to use Acrobat to batch-edit all the fields' fonts/text align but at least they all register as fields.
Really wish InDesign had better form creation tools. Really lacking some of the features needed to work on forms with more than a few fields.
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Genevieve
commented
Hi Chad
thank you for this information it has been very helpful!
I was wondering if you know if it is possible to select my own default fonts for interactive forms? I have been searching for a while and am unable to find a solution.
Kind regards -
Benjamin commented
Chad! You taught me everything I know about accessibility in InDesign (Lynda.com). And thanks to this post I have learned something new again about getting the form fields tags properly into tables without needing remediation in Acrobat.
After you convert the cells to a graphic cell, are you able to select more than one box at the same time? I would like to convert all the boxes to the same kind of form field (e.g., text field or check box) at the same time rather than select each one individually.
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Chad Chelius
commented
If you convert a table cell to a graphic cell and then make that cell a form field, when you export the table to an interactive PDF file, the form tag appears outside of the table cell tag.
1.) Create a table.
2.) Select a cell and choose Convert cell to graphic cell
3.) With the graphic cell selected, choose Text field from the buttons and forms panel to convert the cell to an interactive form field.
4.) Export file to interactive PDF with tags enabled.When you view the pdf and open the Tags pane, the form field should appear within the cell tag but it doesn't, at appears somewhere below the table.
Workaround: I've been able to achieve the desired result by selecting the interactive form field and cutting it. Then inserting the text cursor in the cell and doing a paste. Now when the PDF is exported, at least it appears within the cell. Unfortunately it as a container <p> which I'd prefer that it didn't have, but it's still usable.