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Thread: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)
From: Farough, David (CFP/PSC)
Date: Wed, Mar 03 2021 12:59PM
Subject: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
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I looked at a document that I had previously checked for accessibility in office 2013.
I had insured at the time that all table header rows were set to repeat at the top of page so that they would be considered to be header rows for the tables.
Now when inspecting the document in office 365 the accessibility checker reports all of these tables as having no header rows despite the fact that they are still marked appropriately in the rows page of the table properties dialogue.
Can anyone tell me what selecting the 'use first row as header" option in the recommendations menu does and whether it actually makes a difference to the accessibility of the table.
More importantly, will it be necessary to make similar changes to our other office 2013 documents?
Thanks for any information you can provide.
From: glen walker
Date: Wed, Mar 03 2021 1:20PM
Subject: Re: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
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I'm still using Office 2013 so was able to try this out. I don't have
office 365 so can't check that part.
If I have a table and check the "repeat as header row at the top of
each page" checkbox in the table properties dialog for the first row,
then if I save as PDF, the first row is correctly tagged as <TH>
elements. However, if I save as HTML, the table headers are not tagged
correctly. The elements are contained in a <thead> but they're
incorrectly tagged as <td> instead of <th>. Now, this is probably a
bug in "save as" and not a problem with the table itself (since the
PDF version worked). So I would expect office 365 to correctly read
the table headers. Did you confirm in the table properties dialog
that the row header checkbox is still selected (assuming O365 still
has that dialog).
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 12:59 PM Farough, David (CFP/PSC)
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> I looked at a document that I had previously checked for accessibility in office 2013.
>
> I had insured at the time that all table header rows were set to repeat at the top of page so that they would be considered to be header rows for the tables.
>
> Now when inspecting the document in office 365 the accessibility checker reports all of these tables as having no header rows despite the fact that they are still marked appropriately in the rows page of the table properties dialogue.
>
> Can anyone tell me what selecting the 'use first row as header" option in the recommendations menu does and whether it actually makes a difference to the accessibility of the table.
>
> More importantly, will it be necessary to make similar changes to our other office 2013 documents?
>
> Thanks for any information you can provide.
> > > >
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Wed, Mar 03 2021 1:24PM
Subject: Re: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
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Last time I checked that use first row as header cell caused THs to be created in PDF without requiring the previous approach of repeat header rows across pages to be checked when using the Save as PDF option in Word. So it seems like MS is moving toward using that approach - from what I recall. Repeating headers across pages is still a good idea though.
Jonathan
From: Karen McCall
Date: Wed, Mar 03 2021 1:50PM
Subject: Re: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
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Here is the Microsoft page that explains the rules and as important, how they change from iteration of Office to iteration:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/rules-for-the-accessibility-checker-651e08f2-0fc3-4e10-aaca-74b4a67101c1?ui=en-us&rs=en-gb&ad=gb#:~:text=Warnings%20%20%20%20Rule%20%20%20,%20PowerPoint,%20OneNote%20%201%20more%20rows
In recent versions the "Header Row Repeat" has been replaced by the ability to use the Table Design Ribbon to identify Header Row and First column which will convert column and row titles to TH tags in a PDF document.
I still tell people to repeat the header row because it optimizes accessibility as tables span pages.
Cheers, Karen
From: L Snider
Date: Thu, Mar 04 2021 5:42AM
Subject: Re: Can someone explain the following Accessibility checker results in Office 365?
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They made significant changes to Word since 2013, and you may be seeing
that in the code. In my experience on Mac and PC, PDFs don't always create
the tables correctly, many times I get a billion header rows, when Word can
only mark one (there is no rhyme or reason as it happens every so often
when I create a new table too)...
The repeat header rows is good for everyone, as it helps keep the header
row (and/or column row) on each page, if the table continues. The first
header row option is checked by default in the newer Word versions, as is
first column row (I always have to take the column row off if no column).
This should give it a TH and not a TD...but if you convert to PDF, always
check every table because there is not consistency, and I have seen that on
Mac more than PC (I use both).
Cheers
Lisa
On Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 4:50 PM Karen McCall < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Here is the Microsoft page that explains the rules and as important, how
> they change from iteration of Office to iteration:
>
> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/rules-for-the-accessibility-checker-651e08f2-0fc3-4e10-aaca-74b4a67101c1?ui=en-us&rs=en-gb&ad=gb#:~:text=Warnings%20%20%20%20Rule%20%20%20,%20PowerPoint,%20OneNote%20%201%20more%20rows
>
> In recent versions the "Header Row Repeat" has been replaced by the
> ability to use the Table Design Ribbon to identify Header Row and First
> column which will convert column and row titles to TH tags in a PDF
> document.
>
> I still tell people to repeat the header row because it optimizes
> accessibility as tables span pages.
>
> Cheers, Karen
>
>