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"tables" mode or "links" mode?

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From: Angela French
Date: Aug 29, 2011 4:36PM

Hello and thanks for your valuable contribution to my ongoing efforts to education myself on matters of accessibility!

I am aware that there is a "links" mode and a "forms" mode for screen readers such as JAWS. Is there also something such as a "tables" mode? How does a screen reader user decide what "mode" to put the device into to read the page?

If a web page has a complex table in it that also presents links to outside sources (say documents that can be downloaded, represented by a document icon), what mode is most likely to be employed by the user? In the above example, if the page was in links mode, would the user know what the document was all about since the context of the table was important to ascertain that?

(This is related to the last email I sent out about presenting documents for download).

Thanks,

Angela French
Internet Specialist
State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.checkoutacollege.com<;http://www.checkoutacollege.com/>;