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From: Preast, Vanessa
Date: Fri, Sep 16 2016 9:27PM
Subject: accessible word-wrap in word?
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From what I can tell, floating images and textboxes are not accessible in Word.

We have some individuals who want to be able to wrap text around an image. However, making the image in line with the text does not seem to permit wrapping. The only way I've been able to think of to do this is to make columns surrounding the image and a block of text that would fit alongside. It seems to work somewhat but is kinda clunky.

Do you have any other techniques you use to wrap text around an image and image caption in word?

Thanks,
Vanessa

Vanessa Preast, Ph.D. DVM
Digital Accessibility & Instructional Specialist

DES MOINES UNIVERSITY
Center for Teaching and Learning
3200 Grand Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50312

515.271.1535
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From: Jamous, JP
Date: Sun, Sep 18 2016 6:03AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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Are those for MSWord document or are you using MSWord for authoring purposes?




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Jean-Pierre Jamous
Digital Accessibility Specialist & Developer
UI Accessibility Team

SME for EBN Include
Digital Accessibility Specialist & Blind and Visually Impaired Expert

The only limitations in life are those we set for ourselves

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From: Preast, Vanessa
Date: Mon, Sep 19 2016 5:05AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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Not sure I understand the question, so I'll just describe further, and hopefully I'm hitting what you're asking for.

Faculty write grants and submit publications using Word, typically. I assume these files are going to an editor who actually formats them for final publication in journals, etc. These publications usually come along with certain style requirements, including number of pages. Thus, some faculty members use word-wrapping to ensure that their proposal does not exceed the page limit. However, these faculty members have also discovered that not only are the floating images/textboxes not accessible in Word, but they also might cause the images to reposition themselves in unexpected ways. The faculty are mostly concerned about the latter issue, but I'm hoping there is an accessible solution that takes care of both issues.

I can check with the faculty, but I'm seriously doubting that they'd want to learn some publishing software. All our faculty have Word and most faculty have at least basic word processing skills. Thus, I suspect that the faculty would be more willing to incorporate a few accessibility-related processes when making Word documents than to learn a whole new software system. (A new system could be so much of a barrier that they might want to give up on the accessibility initiatives.)

Best,
Vanessa

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Sep 19 2016 5:44AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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Vanessa, regarding floating images and accessibility - this may be a situation where converting to PDF for publication would be more accessible to some users. Word has limitations and the only other option might be to provide alternatives to the images elsewhere in the document - but this is difficult and might add to the word count as well.

Jonathan

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 19, 2016, at 7:05 AM, Preast, Vanessa < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >> wrote:

Not sure I understand the question, so I'll just describe further, and hopefully I'm hitting what you're asking for.

Faculty write grants and submit publications using Word, typically. I assume these files are going to an editor who actually formats them for final publication in journals, etc. These publications usually come along with certain style requirements, including number of pages. Thus, some faculty members use word-wrapping to ensure that their proposal does not exceed the page limit. However, these faculty members have also discovered that not only are the floating images/textboxes not accessible in Word, but they also might cause the images to reposition themselves in unexpected ways. The faculty are mostly concerned about the latter issue, but I'm hoping there is an accessible solution that takes care of both issues.

I can check with the faculty, but I'm seriously doubting that they'd want to learn some publishing software. All our faculty have Word and most faculty have at least basic word processing skills. Thus, I suspect that the faculty would be more willing to incorporate a few accessibility-related processes when making Word documents than to learn a whole new software system. (A new system could be so much of a barrier that they might want to give up on the accessibility initiatives.)

Best,
Vanessa

From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Mon, Sep 19 2016 12:19PM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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I think we need some clarity and details about this issue.

1. And inline graphic appears in the sentence or paragraph just like a text character does. It follows in-line with the other content. Often this is called an in-line anchored graphic.

2. A floating graphic is anchored too, but the graphic might have the text wrapping around it and the graphic can appear somewhere else on the page. In later versions of Word, you can see the graphic's blue anchor icon in the margin.

3. See https://blogs.office.com/2012/09/19/working-with-images-gets-simpler-in-the-new-word/ for specifics from Microsoft.

Question to the list:

Do even the latest versions of Word still have this problem? That's Word 2016 and Word 360.

(And it's 2016...can't believe we still have this problem!)

--Bevi Chagnon

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Bevi Chagnon | www.PubCom.com
Technologists, Consultants, Trainers, Designers, and Developers
for publishing & communication
| Acrobat PDF | Print | EPUBS | Sec. 508 Accessibility |
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From: Preast, Vanessa
Date: Mon, Sep 19 2016 12:56PM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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I now have office 2016 for windows, and I had Office 2013 a few weeks ago. Both act similarly from what I've seen.

I add an image. I must place the image "In Line with Text" (Alt + JP + TW + I) in order for the accessibility checker to be OK. If I use the other options that allow text wrapping, the accessibility checker does not like it and I can't hear my image alt text with the screen reader. Granted, I have not checked every one of the text wrapping options, but a quick test of a couple yielded similar results.

From: Karen Sorensen
Date: Mon, Sep 19 2016 7:50PM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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Hi Vanessa,
Great question! Here's what I'd say to my faculty:
Floating images and text are not screen reader accessible because they
aren't in the standard flow of the document. The floating image and text
boxes float above the document's flow, and they aren't seen by a screen
reader. The images have to be inline in order to be in the flow of the
content. The columns idea seems like a good approach if that works for the
layout of the rest of the document. Does the whole page have to be in
columns then? (I don't know of a way to make short columns in MS Word
within just part of the page.)
A simpler way to go could be to make two copies of the document. One that
has the images inline and one that's got text wrap around the images. If
you have a student using assistive technologies provide them with the copy
with the images inline.
A better way to go though would be to use HTML and CSS where you can style
the page layout as you wish and keep the image and text inline with the
document flow.
Hope that helps.
Karen
Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses
www.pcc.edu/access
Portland Community College
971-722-4720
Twitter: @ksorensun

From: Karlen Communications
Date: Tue, Sep 20 2016 6:25AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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You select the content you want to be in columns and when you go to the Page Layout Ribbon and choose your columns, Word puts a section break before and after the columns so you can have "single column" before and after the columns.

I wrote a tutorial on the use of tables and columns that you can find on the Karlen Communications website. It also deals with using Column Breaks. There are sample files for you to take a look at attached to the accessible PDF document.
http://karlencommunications.com/handouts.html

Cheers, Karen

From: Sawyer, Tamara (MMB)
Date: Tue, Sep 20 2016 7:20AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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Hi Vanessa,

When working with images in MS Word, there are several things the author must do to make them accessible. They include placing the image In Line with text. As you have noticed, that means that any subsequent text will not wrap around the image. To make it wrap around the image, use columns. As you have noted, this seems rather futzy when you first learn it, but with practice, it goes really quickly. This works best if the image is left justified, as it will be set up to read the image, then the accompanying text. If the image is right justified, you have to be extra careful of the reading order. Of course, converting your document into a PDF will allow you to change the reading order to exactly how you want it, but if you aren't going to convert it, using columns is the next best thing. I hope this helps.


TAMARA SAWYER | ACCESSIBILITY COORDINATOR | MANAGEMENT SERVICES DIVISION
MINNESOTA MANAGEMENT & BUDGET
651.259.3792 | = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = | MN.GOV/MMB

From: whitneyq
Date: Fri, Sep 23 2016 11:52AM
Subject: Re: accessible word-wrap in word?
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You are correct AFAIK
I've never understood why....as long as the image is inserted into the text at an appropriate or logical place.
I assume it has something to do with Word internal structure. 
But when wrapped text would be more usable for many it forces us into bad workarounds to make the document communicate both structurally and visually . 
Sad. Should be easier.






Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: "Preast, Vanessa" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Date: 9/19/16 2:56 PM (GMT-05:00) To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = , WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > Subject: Re: [WebAIM] accessible word-wrap in word?
I now have office 2016 for windows, and I had Office 2013 a few weeks ago. Both act similarly from what I've seen.

I add an image. I must place the image "In Line with Text" (Alt + JP + TW + I)  in order for the accessibility checker to be OK. If I use the other options that allow text wrapping, the accessibility checker does not like it and I can't hear my image alt text with the screen reader. Granted, I have not checked every one of the text wrapping options, but a quick test of a couple yielded similar results.