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Thread: JAWS reading table ignoring tags

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From: Alan Zaitchik
Date: Tue, Nov 12 2019 1:45PM
Subject: JAWS reading table ignoring tags
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I have a table where row 1 has some headers that have a colspan of 2 so
that row 2 can contain 2 "sub-headers" of colspan 1 within each "major
category". (I know, this is not ideal, but we cannot change the table too
much...)
What I find is that whether I use the Scope attribute for headers or use
the technique of assigning IDs and populating data cells' "header"
attribute-- either way I do not ever hear the row 2 headers announced.
(JAWS 2019 with Acrobat Reader) This seems contrary to many examples on the
web, so I figure the problem must be that the Headers attribute on the data
cells also specifies a row header for each data cell. (I don't think it's a
bad structure since the file passes PAC3, Adobe Acrobat A11y Checker,
CommonLook Validator, and my bleary eyeballing.)

Is there such a limitation on JAWS 2019's ability to process multiple
headers (2 levels of column headers and 1 level of row header) ?

Thanks,
A

From: Don Raikes
Date: Tue, Nov 12 2019 2:56PM
Subject: Re: JAWS reading table ignoring tags
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I reported this to Vispero a few weeks ago, as JAWS not handling multiple column headers properly. It has supposedly been fixed, although I haven't had thte time to test the latest beta of jaws 2020 to verify.
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Zaitchik < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2019 1:45 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Subject: [WebAIM] JAWS reading table ignoring tags

I have a table where row 1 has some headers that have a colspan of 2 so that row 2 can contain 2 "sub-headers" of colspan 1 within each "major category". (I know, this is not ideal, but we cannot change the table too
much...)
What I find is that whether I use the Scope attribute for headers or use the technique of assigning IDs and populating data cells' "header"
attribute-- either way I do not ever hear the row 2 headers announced.
(JAWS 2019 with Acrobat Reader) This seems contrary to many examples on the web, so I figure the problem must be that the Headers attribute on the data cells also specifies a row header for each data cell. (I don't think it's a bad structure since the file passes PAC3, Adobe Acrobat A11y Checker, CommonLook Validator, and my bleary eyeballing.)

Is there such a limitation on JAWS 2019's ability to process multiple headers (2 levels of column headers and 1 level of row header) ?

Thanks,
A