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Re: MS Word accessibility supported for images?

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From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Aug 20, 2009 10:45PM

Mike, have you checked to be sure whether the "layout" setting for the image format is "in line with text"? If my hunch is right, it will be for all the images for which JAWS announces the "alt" text, and it won't be for any of the images JAWS skips.

All the other settings make the image float. That causes all kinds of problems in Word 2003. For example, with any setting other than "in line with text," the caption to the image will wind up in a text box, and, if you try to get Word to generate a list of figures, none of those floating images will appear in that list.

Cliff

>>> "Moore,Michael" < <EMAIL REMOVED> > 08/20/09 8:04 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