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Accessibility question

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From: Don Mauck
Date: Nov 6, 2014 12:16PM

I have a question from a WebADI developer.

We make use of Microsoft Excel to let EBS user download and upload data. Now we are getting some merge cells warnings while checking

accessibility, need advice on whether to fix it.



As per accessibility check of our document with Excel 2010 or higher, there are warnings says merged cells. e.g. in the ADA Merge Cells Test.xlsx I attached,

cell B3 take the place of column B to F, cell G3 takes column G and H.

The way we check it is open ADA Merge Cells Test.xlsx with Excel 2010 or higher. Go to File -> Info> Check for Issues -> Check Accessibility. Warnings

will be shown.



Microsoft help says:

Rule 'Table has simple structure'

--This rule makes sure people haven't used nested tables or merged or split cells inside of data tables to make sure that the data is predictable.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Rules-used-by-the-Accessibility-Checker-651e08f2-0fc3-4e10-aaca-74b4a67101c1?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#_Tables_don?t_use

In the WebADI documents here, we just use horizontal merge, so data should be predictable.



According to this I think our merge is OK, and comply with this rule.

But I still needs confirmation on whether we should not use any merge cells to comply with accessibility.

Does anyone on this list have any comments on this. At first I thought this wouldn't be an issue, now I'm not quite sure.