The rich-text-format (RTF) component design allows you to define a character field that supports displaying and editing information within a rich text environment. This environment supports various fonts, colors, and textual styles such as bold, italic, underline. The environment also allows images and tables to be displayed within the boundaries of the character field.

The RTF field takes into account normal, No Vision, and Low Vision users. As a No Vision or Low Vision, you can view the RTF field in a character field or a character pop-up editor only, but the RTF features are disabled, and the data can be viewed in a plain text format only. The icon displayed next to the character field for No Vision and Low Vision users is different from the icon displayed for normal users.

A normal user can edit the RTF field by clicking on the In Place Editor or the RTF Popup Editor. As a No Vision or Low Vision user, you can edit content only in the character pop-up editor, and the editing behaves like a character field. Any editing that you do in the character pop-up editor overwrites the existing RTF data and causes the formatting to be lost if you save the form.

JAWS indicates the end of an RTF field by saying, "End of Character Rich Text Field with Expand Frame."

Lists in RTF fields

When JAWS encounters a list in the RTF field, it spells out the number of items in the list, and it announces the type of list (ordered or unordered).

When JAWS encounters a bulleted list, it says, "list of X items," with X being the number of items in the list. JAWS says "bullet" before reading each item in the list.

When JAWS encounters a numbered list, it says, "list of X items," with X being the number of items in the list. JAWS reads the number preceding each item followed by the text of that item.

For nested lists, JAWS announces the nesting level of each list.

RTF fields and anchor links

As a No Vision user, to access or to navigate through anchor links in an RTF field, press the Tab key. After JAWS reads the link, you can use these key sequences:

• To open a link, press Enter to open the link.
• To force the link to open in a new window, press Shift+Enter.
• To move through visited links on the page, press V for the next link, and Shift+V for the prior link.
• To move through unvisited links on the page, press U for the next link, and Shift+U for the prior link.