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Re: Table regularity versus empty table cell

for

From: Philip Kiff
Date: Feb 20, 2018 11:52AM

Oh, one more thought about possible solutions. You could tag one of the
empty cell borders as a figure, add an alt text of "empty cell" or "n/a"
and then move that Figure tag so that it is a child of the empty TD tag.
I wouldn't promote this as a best practice, but it is an accessible
method of getting around issues related to empty TD cells when you
cannot edit the actual visible text.

Phil.

On 2018-02-20 1:14 PM, Philip Kiff wrote:
> I think it is preferable to insert an empty TD cell, but I'd be
> curious to hear what others think, or if there is actually a
> hard-and-fast guideline that covers this case.
>
> For what it's worth, the PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) will also
> fail a PDF that does not have the same number of TD tags in each row
> (taking into account any col spans in the headers), and it does not
> seem to care if a data cell is empty.
>
> You might also check to see if the error in CommonLook relates to *how
> many* empty cells you have in a row?
>
> Or maybe you have additional empty tags (like P tags) inside empty TD
> tags and maybe those are being flagged (as opposed to just the empty
> TDs on their own)?
>
> Phil.
>
> On 2018-02-20 10:02 AM, Alan Zaitchik wrote:
>> Has anyone noticed the following? A PDF I am working on has a data
>> table with an empty cell in column 1 row 2. (The rest of the table is
>> regular, with appropriate column headers, no row headers, etc.) The
>> Acrobat Accessibility Checker complains that the table fails
>> Regularity unless I add an (empty) TD cell, so that row 2 has as many
>> columns as the rest of the table rows do. However, if I add that
>> empty TD then CommonLook (HHS standard) fails the table for having an
>> empty cell! I cannot edit the PDF or the source file, e.g. to add
>> "N/A" or its ilk to the added cell.
>> So which is preferable? An empty TD cell or a row with no TD cell in
>> that column?
>> Does JAWS (or NVDA or ... ) actually care?
>> Thanks,
>> A
>>
>> >> >> >> >
> > > >