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Thread: multiple file formats
Number of posts in this thread: 6 (In chronological order)
From: Cheryl Amato
Date: Tue, Dec 26 2006 2:00PM
Subject: multiple file formats
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I have a question. What is the best way to handle multiple formats of the same file. Currently they are presented in a three column table. The columns are file name, PDF and Word. Is making this table a data table sufficient? My concern is that users navigating from one link to another will not understand as all they'll get is "Word" or "PDF" - not the file name.
I would like to know how others are handling this?
Cheryl Amato
Trusted Technologies
From: Jukka K. Korpela
Date: Wed, Dec 27 2006 6:50AM
Subject: Re: multiple file formats
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On Tue, 26 Dec 2006, Cheryl Amato wrote:
> What is the best way to handle multiple formats of the same file.
I think this topic has been discussed in the list, though it might have
been some other forum.
> Currently they are presented in a three column table. The columns are
> file name, PDF and Word. Is making this table a data table sufficient?
No, it's not the right approach. To begin with, how would you name the
links? You would have hard time in writing descriptive link texts that are
unique within a page.
> My concern is that users navigating from one link to another will not
> understand as all they'll get is "Word" or "PDF" - not the file name.
That's one of the problems indeed.
Since a user probably prefers either PDF or Word for each document - they
have _different_ accessibility problems, and the relative impact of
problems depends on the user and his environment - the natural solution is
to have two pages, linked together, one containing links to the documents
in Word format, the other in PDF format. You could then use natural names
of the documents as link texts, since link names need not be unique across
pages.
--
Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
From: Cheryl Amato
Date: Wed, Dec 27 2006 1:50PM
Subject: Re: multiple file formats
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>the natural solution is to have two pages, linked >together, one containing links to the documents
>in Word format, the other in PDF format...
I don't know if the client will go for 2 pages, but they will go for 2 full listings (as redundant as that may be). I think I was just hoping a properly coded data table would work. Thanks
Cheryl
From: Austin, Darrel
Date: Wed, Dec 27 2006 2:10PM
Subject: Re: multiple file formats
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Here's what we've done:
http://www.mncourts.gov/default.aspx?page=513&;item=103&itemType=packetDe
tails
I'm sure this isn't as accessible as it could be (so, suggestions
welcome).
We are using a data table with headers. The download links are the
actual file names. So, for form 'div102' the alt attribute for the word
file is the filename of 'div102.doc' and the pdf is 'div102.pdf'.
-Darrel
From: Egan, Bim
Date: Thu, Dec 28 2006 6:40AM
Subject: Re: multiple file formats
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Hi Darrel,
The table you have on:
http://www.mncourts.gov/default.aspx?page=513&;item=103&itemType=packetDe
might cause a few accessibility problems for screen reader users, but they'd be fairly easy to solve.
At present, someone using a screen reader may tab to the first downloadable link and would hear:
"div102-dot-doc link graphic . Table: column 4, row 2"
So they know that they are in a table, and would hope to be able to find information from table headers to make the above data a bit more informative. To do this they would probably use the screen reader query header facility, which announces headers, or in their absence, top and left cell content. In this table they get:
"Column 4, row 2: Download, div102, div102-dot-doc link graphic, div102-dot-pdf link graphic ." This is the cell reference, content of the topmost and left hand cells, and the whole content of the cell in focus.
To make it really clear, you could do the following:
* move the form name column so that it is the first column.
* give form name cells TH markup, (styled back to however you want them to look).
* split the "download" column into 2 columns, one for each format, with the top cell spanning both, using the SCOPE of COLGROUP.
* Perhaps even use the ALT attributes "Word format" and "PDF format", together with the file size (which can be important for people with little time, or slow downloads when files are large).
Then the screen reader user, still focused on the first link in the table, on querying for header information would hear:
"Column 4, row 2: Download, Instructions - Completing Certificate of Dissolution Form, Word format xxKB link graphic."
That' would be better perhaps.
Cheers,
Bim
From: Moore, Michael
Date: Wed, Jan 03 2007 7:30AM
Subject: Re: multiple file formats
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We have a forms catalog where different forms are available in Word, PDF
html formats. We use a table approach to provide the information. The
column headings are "Form Number" "Title" "Word" "PDF" "Instructions."
Links to html versions are contained within the title column when that
version is available. We use icons to avoid using too much screen real
estate but the text in the alt attribute contains the name and id of the
form as well as its format. We have a couple hundred staff members who
use the catalog with either JAWS or ZoomText as well as staff using
Dragon Naturally Speaking and staff using non-standard keyboards. The
approach has proven effective for all of them.
Mike