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Re: MS Word accessibility supported for images?

for

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Aug 20, 2009 6:50PM

You are right in that Office for Mac doesn't let you provide Alt text. It is
also not accessible.

The other document part to avoid is the "paragraph frame" which is like a
text box but has a different name. In Word 2007 the new content controls are
inaccessible but using legacy controls for forms provides the same level of
accessibility as in Word 2003. Paragraph frames can be found in the new
style or modify style dialog under the Format button. Just say no!

I always recommend that captions be used for tables, images and equations in
the event that the document is printed or the Alt Text is not rendered to
the end user. The caption can be the same text as the Alt Text or different
text. As a person using a screen reader I'd rather use my keyboard commands
to skip over redundant information than to miss something.

Cheers, Karen

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Cliff Tyllick
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 10:29 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] MS Word accessibility supported for images?

Good points, Mike. I'm glad to hear that at least some alt text is read in
Word 2007.

I have one minor but important correction: In Word, those troublesome "text
areas" are actually called "text boxes." (I just want to be sure everyone
knows exactly what you mean.)

In my experience, they have been used to try to fix bad writing. It doesn't
work. For that reason, I am tickled to find that AT does not play well with
them. With that fact at my side, I have a much stronger argument for fixing
the document for everyone.

Cliff

Cliff Tyllick
Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
<EMAIL REMOVED>

>>> "Moore,Michael" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 8/20/2009 8:03 AM >>>
Well, yes and no. We have found with JAWS 9 and 10 and Office 2007 that the
alternative text will be announced by the screen reader, just not
consistently. We have not been able to determine what causes the variable
behavior. There are also other methods that screen reader users can use
while in Word to access the alternative text in the images, but in practice
I have not observed many people doing this.

If the document is converted to PDF or HTML the alternative text will
definitely be present for the user. This saves a step when working from
Word.

More important in Word documents, is the use of styles to mark up headings.
These are made available to the JAWS screen reader users and greatly improve
navigation through the document. I am not sure about other ATs. These will
also convert to headings in HTML and PDF.

One thing to definitely avoid within Word documents are "text areas." These
little gems that are frequently used for callouts, and misused for many
other purposes, are generally missed by screen reader users. They do not
appear within the normal document flow and thus are difficult to find. I
have seen several hacks to get around the issue, but in practice I have not
seen them work well in any version of JAWS that we have tested.

Mike Moore

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Mark Magennis
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 5:38 AM
To: Webaim Forum
Subject: [WebAIM] MS Word accessibility supported for images?

Can the use of text alternatives with images in Microsoft Word (DOC
format) files be said to be accessibility supported? That is, are
enough assistive technologies able to read the alt text if it is there?

Thanks,
Mark

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