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Re: Word & PDF Style Question About Headings

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From: Jonathan Cohn
Date: Jul 11, 2019 1:57PM

Is this a screen reader issue or a Word API issue? I don't know enough about how Word and current screen readers communicate such information, but it must be either from Visual Basic clues or UIA. I believe NVDA 2019 release notes mention something about using UIA for Word but I can't look at the specifics and I am not sure I understand enough Python if I could. But the real question I see here is:
Is Word not providing appropriate heading context to the screen readers, or are the screen readers ignoring this information.
> Jul 11, 2019, at 12:07 PM, Karlen Communications < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>
> First, JAWS won't announce or list custom Headings. We've been complaining
> about this lack of support since 2003. Even if you base a Heading 1A or in
> your case a Heading 3 No Top line based on a Heading 3, JAWS won't see it as
> a Heading. It will appear in the TOC and in the Navigation Pane...anywhere
> else but when you are going through the document either reading using JAWS
> or trying to get a list of Headings.
>
> I just checked with JAWS and I can use JawsKey + F to get the font
> information and it tells me that Heading 1A is outline level 1. I renamed
> Heading 1A to Orange Text and using the same keyboard command I get the name
> of the Style and the outline level. However, as I'm reading the document,
> there is no indication from JAWS that I am on a Heading despite the text
> being in the Navigation Pane at its correct placement and despite being able
> to use References, Table of Contents to generate an accurate Table of
> Contents.
>
> Again, we've been asking for this support since 2003. Looks like NVDA does
> not support custom Headings either.
>
> It should convert to H3 when the document is converted to tagged PDF if the
> custom Heading is based on an existing Heading. Heading 3 No Top Line is a
> custom Heading. I've not ever seen it in the list of Styles for Word..
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Jim
> Homme
> Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2019 9:54 AM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: [WebAIM] Word & PDF Style Question About Headings
>
> ==========Hi,
> I would love to be able to predict what will happen when working with this,
> to relieve stress. I'm glad I checked before I told someone to do a bunch of
> work they ended up not having to do. I almost told someone to change a lot
> of items in Word, but we noticed that they looked good to NVDA, when we
> created the PDF. Here is what happened.
>
>
> * In Word, there is a style whose name is "Heading 3 no top line." As of
> this writing, I'm unsure if this is a built-in style, or if someone here
> created it. I had NVDA set to report style names and headings, because I
> wanted to catch paragraphs that looked to me like normal paragraphs that
> should be turned into built-in heading styles. When I also turned on the
> NVDA feature that reports headings, I noticed that for the styles I normally
> see in Word whose names are "Heading 1," "Heading 2," "Heading 3," and so
> forth, NVDA reported the style names and the heading and level. For example,
> it said "Style Heading3 heading 3."
> For the style in question, NVDA said "Heading 3 no top line," which seemed
> to indicate that NVDA did not realize that this style was meant to be a
> heading level 3. I then checked the properties for the paragraph after I
> located one of these items. I noticed that the outline level was 3. I also
> noticed that the style in question is based on the built-in Heading 3 style.
> This seems to indicate that NVDA reports heading level based on style names,
> rather than outline level.
>
> Now, finally, the question. Cjould this be an NVDA bug, or exactly what am I
> looking at here?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim
>
>
> Jim Homme
> Digital Accessibility
> Bender Consulting Services
> 412-787-8567
> https://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-
> solutions
>
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