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You can customize a few reading features in the Preferences dialog (Figure 45). Read about the customizations in the sidebar “Read It Your Way.”
Figure 45 Customize the way Acrobat reads to you in the Preferences dialog.
Keystrokes. Acrobat offers full keystroke access to navigation and program items. Unlike other Adobe programs, like Photoshop and InDesign, Acrobat doesn’t have you define keystrokes yourself. Choose Help > Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended Help to open the Adobe Help Viewer. Scroll down to the Keyboard shortcuts listing in the left frame of the window—you’ll find lists of shortcuts for work areas, getting around the program, and using tools. (For a short list of keystrokes used to acti-vate features like Read Aloud, check out Table 49.1 in #49, “Enhancing PDF Accessibility”).
#45: Navigating a Document
Wrapping with Reflow Readers using assistive devices or very small screens like those on personal dig-ital assistants (PDAs) often experience a problem called reflow. When you zoom in closely to a page, what hap-pens? You see a few words and maybe an image. Not only do you have to scroll back and forth to see the entire line, but also it’s diffi-cult or impossible to under-stand where you are in the document at any given time.
Choose View > Zoom >
Reflow to automatically wrap content on the page, regardless of the level of magnification. Keep in mind that reflow is not a perma-nent format: Whenever you reset the magnification, reflow is turned off.
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Select the “Read form fields” check box to have text fields, check boxes, and radio buttons in fill-able forms read aloud.C h a p t e r S i x Complying with PDF and Accessibility Standards
Organize Reading with Articles
There are two options for making a page flow properly regardless of the mag-nification: Either you can revise the layout to have a single column, or you can use articles to define a reading path on the page. Articles allow you to design a document both for visual appearance and for ease of reading using magnified views.
Follow these steps to control a reading path through a document using articles:
1. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Article Tool or click the Article tool to select it if you have opened the Advanced Editing toolbar.
2. Click and drag to create a rectangular marquee in your document. When you release the mouse, Acrobat draws the first article box, numbered 1-1.
The Article tool draws a shape on the page irrespective of the contents.
Anything within the margins of the box becomes part of the article.
3. Continue adding article boxes; as you draw boxes around pieces of text or images, Acrobat numbers the articles consecutively. The sequence of boxes using the same article number is called an article thread.
4. Press Esc (or Return) or select another tool to stop the article drawing and open the Article Properties dialog. At a minimum, you need to name the article.
5. Click OK to close the dialog.
For editing articles, such as deleting or adding boxes or combining articles, select the thread you want to work with, and choose the commands from the shortcut menu.
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#46: Specifying Accessibility Requirements Both Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9 offer a wizard for configuring the programs to optimize display and interaction for assistive devices.
To run the wizard, choose Advanced > Accessibility > Setup Assistant to open the five-screen wizard. Click Next to move to each screen; click Done when you have made selections on all screens.
Note
The wizard is the same in both Acrobat and Adobe Reader, aside from ref-erences to the programs’ names. In Adobe Reader, choose Document >
Accessibility Setup Assistant.
Look for these features on each screen:
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Screen 1. Choose the device you are working with: a screen reader, a screen magnifier, or all options. You can also click the “Use recom-mended settings and skip setup” button to close the wizard and apply the preprogrammed settings.•
Screen 2. On this screen choose a high-contrast color scheme and colors for fields, producing a page like the example shown in Figure 46.Choose the option to disable text smoothing (producing sharper-looking text). Since some assistive devices can have problems with Acrobat’s use of different cursors for different tools, you can select
“Always display the keyboard selection cursor.”
Figure 46 Be careful when designing documents that may be viewed using a high-contrast color scheme. In this example, although it’s easy to read the left sample, using a high-contrast color scheme makes some of the text barely legible, as in the right sample.
Specifying accessibility
settings from a number of panels in the Preferences dialog:•
The options for reading order and screen reading are available in the Reading Order Options section of Preferences.•
The “Confirm before tag-ging documents” option is also in the Reading preferences in the Screen Reader Options section preferences are in the Forms preferences.There are two options for making a page flow properly regardless of the mag-nification: Either you can revise the layout to have a single column, or you can use articles to define a reading path on the page. Articles allow you to design a document both for visual appearance and for ease of reading using magnified views.
Follow these steps to control a reading path through a document using articles:
1. Choose Tools > Advanced Editing > Article Tool or click the Article tool to select it if you have opened the Advanced Editing toolbar.
2. Click and drag to create a rectangular marquee in your document. When you release the mouse, Acrobat draws the first article box, numbered 1-1.
The Article tool draws a shape on the page irrespective of the contents.
Anything within the margins of the box becomes part of the article.
3. Continue adding article boxes; as you draw boxes around pieces of text or images, Acrobat numbers the articles consecutively. The sequence of boxes using the same article number is called an article thread.
4. Press Esc (or Return) or select another tool to stop the article drawing and open the Article Properties dialog. At a minimum, you need to name the article.
5. Click OK to close the dialog.
For editing articles, such as deleting or adding boxes or combining articles, select the thread you want to work with, and choose the commands from the shortcut menu.
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