Gudrun, Now I'm a bit confused, so we're going to have to walk each other through some of the details to see where our differences lie and whether there is something toxic going on between JAWS and Adobe Reader. Here is the IRS Form W9, straight from the source. It, like every other IRS PDF file I've ever dealt with, does not need to be OCRed because the thing is developed in Adobe Acrobat and as is should be readable by JAWS. Mind you, I don't have JAWS here but whenever I am able to do a search in Adobe Reader and find text that has indicated that it should be readable by JAWS. Now, I haven't worked with anyone as far as what JAWS may or may not read in regard to the fillable fields.
I just downloaded the above linked form W9 and opened it in Acrobat Reader DC. I have searched for the phrase "income tax return" and it can be found at two locations. I have filled in the first two fields, Name and Business Name, respectively, and was allowed to save the form. When I close Adobe Reader DC entirely and then open the FW9 file that I saved all information I've entered remains there. If I hit a single tab once the file opens that places me in the first fillable filed, Name in this case, and each successive tab takes me to the next fillable field, whether that's a text/edit box, check box, etc. My guess is that once one has focus on the fillable fields that is where it stays unless one uses the F5 command to shift focus back to the PDF document text, that's worth a try, anyway. Here is the latest collection of Adobe Reader DC keyboard shortcuts. In a particularly perversely funny twist the keyboard shortcuts for accessibility are available on this page but the direct link to them is hidden unless you hit "show more." Of course, a search on accessibility will get you there, too. That being said, the regular keyboard shortcuts may be far more pertinent. It would probably help us both if we know we're talking about a specific version of JAWS and a specific version of Adobe Reader. I would hope that those who create fillable PDF forms would be taking accessibility into consideration (particularly government forms) and that there is some marriage of JAWS and Adobe Reader that would announce what those fields are when you land in them (which, of course, means that field names or alternate text were assigned by the coder). Brian
