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Thread: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)
From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 2:00PM
Subject: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Hello,
Can anyone tell me please, if current versions of MS Word support the marking up of complex data tables ? I am unable to find anything on the web. I know that as of Word 2010 it was not possible to structurally associated merged or split data cells with their associated headers. But I don't know about more recent versions.
Thank you,
Angela French
Internet/Intranet Specialist
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
360-704-4316
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
From: Jim Allan
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 3:29PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Word has only rudimentary table mark up (first row header). Converting to
PDF or HTML requires manual markup enhancement as the semantics are not
provided by Word.
Jim
On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 3:00 PM, Angela French < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hello,
> Can anyone tell me please, if current versions of MS Word support the
> marking up of complex data tables ? I am unable to find anything on the
> web. I know that as of Word 2010 it was not possible to structurally
> associated merged or split data cells with their associated headers. But I
> don't know about more recent versions.
>
>
> Thank you,
>
> Angela French
> Internet/Intranet Specialist
> Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
> 360-704-4316
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = <mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> www.sbctc.edu<;http://www.sbctc.edu/>;
>
> > > > >
--
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315 fax: 512.206.9264 http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964
From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 4:42PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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New version of Word released this past spring now also allows users to designate row headers in the left-most (or first) column.
In the Table Ribbon's design tab, the checkmarks for header row and first column now work. Although they've been in the ribbon for eons, they didn't do anything in controlling the tables.
Small improvement, but an improvement nonetheless.
--Bevi Chagnon
From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 4:53PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Jim - so you are saying that after saving as PDF, an editor could use Acrobat Pro to correctly associate headers and cells for a complex table? Has anyone ever heard why MS won't improve on this issue? Aren't we in 2017?
Angela French
From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 4:56PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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But what about more complex than that - table headers that might have merged cells with columns under them?
Angela French
From: Angela French
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 5:00PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Here is an example of the kind of complex table I'm talking about. This is html however. http://accessibility.psu.edu/tableshtml/complextablehtml/
From: Chagnon | PubCom
Date: Wed, Jul 12 2017 6:16PM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Here's a W.A.I. tutorial on correcting tables and headers in Acrobat Pro.
https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/PDF20.html
Not tough to do, but does take some time, especially if you have a multi-page table in a PDF.
FYI, Adobe InDesign does a better job with complex tables by at least automatically adding the scope to merged cells, but their tables still need some touch-up work in Acrobat.
--Bevi Chagnon
From: Jim Homme
Date: Thu, Jul 13 2017 6:52AM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Hi,
I would be pleasantly surprised to find out that Word associates heading cells with data cells. This is why screen readers use the work-around of bookmarks with naming conventions. The only thing I am aware of that MS does to make tables talk better with screen readers is that in the table properties, we have alt and title, but I believe JAWS does not pick this up, whereas NVDA does. And I do not think it carries over when you save as PDF. I would be very happy to find out that I am wrong on any of these points.
Jim
=========Jim Homme,
Team Lead and Accessibility Consultant,
Bender HighTest Accessibility Team
Bender Consulting Services, Inc.,
412-787-8567,
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http://www.benderconsult.com/our%20services/hightest-accessible-technology-solutions
E+R=O
From: Angela French<mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2017 6:54 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List<mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
Jim - so you are saying that after saving as PDF, an editor could use Acrobat Pro to correctly associate headers and cells for a complex table? Has anyone ever heard why MS won't improve on this issue? Aren't we in 2017?
Angela French
From: Angela French
Date: Thu, Jul 13 2017 9:44AM
Subject: Re: Does MS Word support marking up of complex data tables?
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Thank you Bevi.