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Re: Tables and Excel: merged or unmerged cells?
From: Bevi Chagnon
Date: Apr 14, 2012 8:13PM
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Since neither the email nor the attachments came through with the test
tables, I've uploaded them to:
http://www.pubcom.com/508tests/
--Bevi
-----------------------------------------------------
Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers
Print | Web | Acrobat | XML | eBooks | Section 508
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Classes: www.PubCom.com/classes
Publishing Blog: www.pubcom.com/blog
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*** It's our 31st Year! ***
-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Bevi Chagnon
Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2012 9:26 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Tables and Excel: merged or unmerged cells?
I have a question for our list members who use assistive technologies.
Do you want cells in a Word table or Excel spreadsheet merged or unmerged?
I'm asking because I've received conflicting information from government
clients. A few years ago I worked directly with an accessibility tester at
the National Federation of the Blind to test Excel spreadsheets for a
federal government agency. The tester wanted merged cells that spanned
appropriate columns or rows.
But many U.S. government agencies have guidelines requiring cells to be
unmerged in Word tables and Excel spreadsheets.
Here's a quick sample (also in the Word and Excel attachments). The header
"Apples" spans 2 columns, Macintosh and Red Delicious. "Pears" spans 2
columns, Bosc and Bartlett. (Please note that TD tags will be applied in the
actual Word documents).
Sales of produce for 2011 and 2012 by variety
Apples
Pears
Macintosh
Red Delicious
Bosc
Bartlett
2011
2000
2500
3000
3500
2012
1000
1500
2000
2500
Some government agencies require this version below, where "Apples" is
repeated above each column, making the table ridiculously complex for
sighted users.
Sales of produce for 2011 and 2012 by variety
Apples
Apples
Pears
Pears
Macintosh
Red Delicious
Bosc
Bartlett
2011
2000
2500
3000
3500
2012
1000
1500
2000
2500
WCAG 2.0 has notes about the scope attribute, but that is for HTML webpages
only and is not available (at this time) for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
other non-web documents.
Thanks for any guidance you can give.
-- Bevi
--
Bevi Chagnon | <EMAIL REMOVED>
PubCom - Trainers, consultants, designers, and developers
Print, Web, Acrobat, XML, eBooks, and Federal Section 508
--
* It's our 31st Year! *
- Next message: Ryan E. Benson: "Re: Rules versus "Rules""
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- Next message in Thread: Duff Johnson: "Re: Tables and Excel: merged or unmerged cells?"
- Previous message in Thread: Birkir R. Gunnarsson: "Re: Tables and Excel: merged or unmerged cells?"
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