PDF Form

A PDF document that contains interactive form fields — text boxes, checkboxes, radio buttons, signatures, dropdowns — that users can fill in and submit electronically, rather than a static PDF meant only for reading. PDF forms are widely used for government applications, healthcare intake, tax filings, contracts, and benefits enrolment. Making a PDF form accessible requires more than tagging text: each field must have the correct field type, grouped radios and checkboxes must share a group name, tooltips (programmatic labels) must be set, tab order must be logical, and any tables of fields must be correctly structured. Uckun et al. (2020) found that roughly half of PDF forms on the web have missing or incorrect field labels, making them largely unusable for screen-reader users.