Ontology-Driven Transformations for PDF Form Accessibility

Utku Uckun, Ali Selman Aydin, Vikas Ashok, I. V. Ramakrishnan

Abstract: Filling out PDF forms with screen readers has always been a challenge for people who are blind. Many of these forms are not interactive and hence are not accessible; even if they are interactive, the serial reading order of the screen reader makes it difficult to associate the correct labels with the form fields. This demo will present TransPAc[5], an assistive technology that enables blind people to fill out PDF forms. Since blind people are familiar with web browsing, TransPAc leverages this fact by faithfully transforming a PDF document with forms into a HTML page. The blind user fills out the form fields in the HTML page with their screen reader and these filled-in data values are transparently transferred onto the corresponding form fields in the PDF document. TransPAc thus addresses a long standing problem in PDF form accessibility.