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Re: JAWS cannot handle complex table

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From: glen walker
Date: Mar 28, 2018 10:29AM

I'm not sure there's really a problem. I duplicated your layout with an
html table, assuming I understand the layout correctly. I'm attaching an
html file, although I'm not sure if attachments come through on the
archives. The table should be as you described, but I also have a button
before and after the table because I like to tab into my test page to a
focusable object first, and then use T to navigate to the table, strictly
for testing purposes.

NVDA allows you to navigate to all cells in the table but JAWS (2018) does
not. There is an argument that JAWS is doing the right thing. Row 2
contains data for all four columns, with the last two cells spanning
multiple rows. Row 3 only contains two data cells, in the first two
columns. The last two data cells aren't really there because the cells
belong to row 2. So you hit the right edge of the table after the second
data cell.

I'm not saying I agree with how JAWS is interpreting it, but I can
understand why they would do it.

NVDA isn't completely great either. While NVDA will let me navigate across
row 3 and access the last two data cells as if they were on row 3, if I try
to navigate back to the left, I end up in row 2. So NVDA also interprets
the spanned rows as belonging to row 2.

I also tried the table with VoiceOver and it behaves like JAWS. As I swipe
right through the table, I can navigate across all of row 2. The VO focus
then moves to row 3 and only lets me access the first two cells and then
the focus moves to row 4. So like JAWS, VoiceOver thinks the spanned cells
belong to row 2 and that there are only two data cells in row 3. The nice
thing about VO is that it told me the last two cells in row 2 spanned four
rows. I don't know if JAWS or NVDA tell you that. I didn't try tracking
that down.

The end result is that it sounds like your PDF table is marked up correctly
because you're hearing the same behavior as an html table.

Glen