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Re: Question for screen reader users

for

From: Geof Collis
Date: Dec 15, 2009 1:24PM

Why would anyone want to remove the blank line between paragraphs for
screen reader users? How am I to know when one paragraph ends and
another starts?

You could also use the <br /> tag to create space between lines
instead of css, it would require less code.

cheers

Geo

At 12:55 PM 12/15/2009, you wrote:
>Your question made me curious, so I created a very simple page to
>test it out. The page just contained a series of paragraph elements
>with various numbers of blank lines before, after, and inside the
>paragraph elements.
>
>With JAWS 11 and both IE7 and FF3.5, JAWS announced a single blank
>line after each paragraph--no matter how many blank lines appeared
>in the html file. It, like the browsers, ignored any blank lines in
>the paragraph elements.
>
>With NVDA 20009.1 and both IE7 and FF3.5, NVDA did not announce any
>of the blank lines that appeared in the html file.
>
>That's not a thorough test, but it seems to match what I have
>observed in the past with at least JAWS and NVDA. Someone else may
>be able to test the other screen readers, browsers, or various
>versions of either.
>
>You can get a screen reader to announce a blank line if you have an
>empty block element (like the paragraph element) or a br element or
>a series of blank lines in a pre element. However, if that is the
>case, I would suggest removing them. If the site/app is using those
>empty elements to attain a certain visual appearance, then I would
>second Keith's suggestion to use CSS to attain that appearance.
>
>Thanks!
>Tim
>-----Original Message-----
>From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Langum, Michael J
>Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 11:07 AM
>To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
>Subject: [WebAIM] Question for screen reader users
>
>We've been requested to remove all the carriage returns (that is,
>when you hit the Enter key to insert a blank line between
>paragraphs) because (they allege ) screen readers will say them aloud.
>
>I've never heard of this. Can anyone confirm or deny?
>
>-- Mike Langum
> Asst. Webmaster, WWW.OPM.GOV
> U.S. Office of Personnel Management
>
>
>