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Re: Accessible spreadsheets

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Jun 22, 2018 12:53PM

I can only address JAWS 18.

There are verbosity settings and keyboard commands to navigate column and
row titles as well as various areas of the worksheet and workbook. It is
important that each worksheet have a unique name that is meaningful to the
content of the worksheet.

When I land on a cell with a formula, JAWS will read both the formula and
the result.

My biggest problem is with JAWS losing focus and just shifting the screen
slightly up or slightly down without saying anything. Usually the only way
to get it to work again in Excel is to restart my computer. This is with
Word 2016 through Office 365 and Windows 10 all updates installed. I've had
this problem for years so don't even think about it unless I'm concentrating
on remediating a worksheet and suddenly lose speech.

The other huge issue for those of us using screen readers or Text-to-Speech
tools is not being able to see or visually decode the layout of the data on
the worksheet. When remediating Excel content I use Word to write a
"narrative" of how the worksheet is laid out, provide links to main topic
areas and let the end-user know if there are blank columns and rows used for
visual effect. Most document authors won't let you change the layout of
their worksheets/workbook. I find a blank cell near the top of the worksheet
and add the text from Word, making it white text on a white background makes
it available to screen readers and Text-to-Speech tools but not visible
unless focus is in that cell. Same with the links, find a place near the top
of the worksheet, let people know in the narrative that they are there and
where they start and make them white text on a white background.

Microsoft also has some tips on making Excel worksheets accessible:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Make-your-Excel-spreadsheets-access
ible-6cc05fc5-1314-48b5-8eb3-683e49b3e593

Cheers, Karen