The guidance on this site seemed very detailed and in depth so I thought I would review it in case I could pick up something new.

The Problem

As I read through the site I came across a statement that said the style for Header 1 (that is heading level 1) should only be used once in a document and that it should be used as a title. I am not sure why this advice was being given because Word provides a style for the title of a document. The style is called, oddly enough, ‘Title’. In fact, using the ‘Header 1′ style for a title is going to cause problems with your table of contents, if you choose to use a TOC.

The site went on to describe how to remove the Header 1 style from the TOC outline. I thought to myself, “Hmmm. Why would they do that? Maybe they don’t like the way the Title style is formatted. If that is the case why don’t they just modify the style to look the way they want?”

As I continued to read it was mentioned that there is a bug with the TOC in Word 2003 and that a after the TOC is created in a document the user should cut and paste the TOC into Notepad. Then after that they should copy the TOC from Notepad and paste it back into the Word document. What?!

All the advice this site had given was pretty accurate so far. This business about using Heading 1 as a title was a bit odd but now this TOC stuff was just plain ridiculous. If I follow the advice on the TOC all I have done is negated the benefit of having a TOC in the document! For example the bookmark links were automatically generated are now gone. Any formatting that the TOC had is now gone. I also no longer have the ability to update the TOC should I make changes to my document. If I do make changes to the document I have to recreate the TOC, paste it into Notepad and then back into Word and manually reformat the entire TOC. Why would they give such crazy advice?

The “Ah-Ha!” Moment

Now at this moment I would usually just close my browser and say, “What is wrong with the people who created that site?” But something was nagging at me to look further into what they really were trying to accomplish. The site mentioned that this TOC workaround needed to be done because there was a bug in Word 2003 and the way it handled the table of contents. It also said that this issue had been fixed in Word 2007. The site didn’t go into detail about this mysterious issue that caused them give such nonsensical advice.

So I decided to break out my install of Office 2003 and poke around a little to see what I could figure out. As I tried different things I quickly discovered an issue with the TOC. Some of the heading levels were not showing up in the TOC! I tried the same steps in Office 2007 and found that this behavior was not happening in that version. Could this be the reason for the strange advice being given?

I am not sure if this is the reason, but it does tie the header and TOC advice together or at least places them both at the scene of the crime. I am going to assume this must be the apparent ‘bug’ that was referenced.

The Fix!

As I contemplated why the TOC in Word 2003 was not including all the headers in the document I discovered the reason by showing the formatting marks in the document. This is done using the Show/Hide command button while in the Normal (Print Layout in Word 2007), Web Layout or Draft Layout views.

To turn this feature on and off you select the button with the paragraph mark on it  or use the keyboard shortcut which is Alt+Shift+*. When it is on your document will include the various formatting marks demonstrated in this screen shot:

What I noticed is if a page break was used and there was no carriage return just before the break then the heading that followed on the next page would not show up in the TOC.

How could this happen? An example would be that you are typing in Print Layout view and you have inserted a page break. You notice that there appears to be an extra line below the last paragraph on the page. It looks this way because the cursor is sitting there flashing at you (this is due to the carriage return).

So you use the backspace key to remove that apparent extra empty line. When you do this you have effectively removed the carriage return. Now the paragraph and page break no longer have a carriage return to separate the two.

Here is an image of how the document would look with the the carriage return properly located between the end of the paragraph and the page break:

When the carriage return is removed this creates the situation as demonstrated in the image below:

That carriage return is essential if you want the header style at the top of the next page to be included in the TOC.

If you are a user of Word 2003 go give it a try and see for yourself! If you find that the header does not get added back to the TOC after you re-add the carriage return, then select the header text and reapply the style.

Summary

Now I am not sure if this is in fact the issue that was being discussed on the site I mentioned earlier. If it is or is not the fact is the advice that was given on that site is just plain bad advice.

By using the proper styles and other features in Word such, as the Table of Contents, correctly your document will be better structured as an accessible document. Then if you export your document to a PDF format that structure will be exported also which again provides better accessibility.

Now I don’t want to knock the effort that was put into creating the content on the site mentioned above because the majority of it was correct. I want to encourage more effort to share this type of knowledge. This way we can help to ensure that content is accessible to all users.

That being said, I also want to encourage that any advice that is given be as accurate as possible. If you run into issues like that demonstrated in this blog post please don’t just make things up. Take the time to do your own research and post comments and questions on blogs like this one. You may find someone who can provide you the solution.

Most importantly do not assume that everything you read online as correct. Do your due dillegence! As mentioned in the title of the post, when it comes to free accessibility advice…caveat emptor!

If you disagree with my comments, have run into similar situations or have any questions on accessibility issue s please post your comments and questions here.

The videos are in 5 parts here:

1. Part 1 – UI Automation for Developers Overview
2. Part 2 – Improving Performance
3. Part 3 – Controlling the UI
4. Part 4 – Addressing AT Innovation
5. Part 5 – Addressing Access to Rich Text

Data accessibility is becoming a very critical part of software development but I think many of us forget to address accessibility where it is most common in our day to day computer use.  There are many different Microsoft Office applications so I’m really only going to address some accessibility issues in PowerPoint and Word in this post.

It’s easy to create a document and throw in a picture or graphic but by doing so it can quickly make that document non-compliant (at least to the section 508 accessibility standards.)  It can also keep screen reader programs such as JAWS from identifying and reading these graphics.  So in a Word document just how would we make it accessible?

Alternative text is really the key as most screen readers can easily read through the normal text of the document but usually hiccup when coming across a picture, chart or some other graphic.  By simply adding alternate text to these graphics you can help ensure that you’re document is readable (in a sense) by everyone.

Word reacts very similar to Outlook so this is a two for one as the below steps should work for the corresponding Outlook version as well.

Office 2003 (Word):

With an image embedded in your document…

1.       Right click image

2.       Select “Format Picture…”  (there is also a “Format Picture…” available in picture toolbar

3.       Select “Web” tab

4.       Type Alternative Text in the field that matches the content of the graphic

5.       Select “OK” button

Office 2007 (Word)

With an image embedded in your document…

1.       Right click on image

2.       Select “Size”

3.       Select “Alt Text” tab

4.       Type Alternative Text in the field that matches the content of the graphic

5.       Select “Close” button

Keep in mind there are multiple scenarios depending on your expertise and usage of Word.  The rule of thumb is that if you are conveying a message with something other than text, it should also have a textual representation.  Links tend to be self explanatory but what about a button that launches a link?  The buttons alternative text should be something like “Select here to go to http://theaccesspond.com/”

There are additional benefits to the practice of adding alternative text in that when saved as an .htm or .html file the alt text will appear for all users when the graphic is scrolled over with the mouse and be read by assistive technologies like screen readers.  There are some differences between the two versions of Word but the end result is the same…you have now made your embedded graphics in a Word document accessible.

Office 2003 (PowerPoint)

1.        Right click on image

2.       Select “Format”

3.       Select the “Web” tab

4.       Type Alternative Text in the field that matches the content of the graphic

5.       Select the “OK” button

Office 2007 (PowerPoint)

1.        Right click on image

2.       Select “Size and Position”

3.       Select “Alt Text” tab

4.       Type text into “Alternative Text” field.  (Text should generally describe the graphic it is referring to).

5.       Select “Close” button

Making a PowerPoint presentation fully accessible is its own monster and there are third party tools that can assist you but they come with a price tag.  Really there are only a couple of ways to really make a PowerPoint presentation fully accessible.  The first option is to simply create an .html version of your presentation and this is what some third party tools will assist with.  The other which to me is more feasible is to utilize the Outline function of PowerPoint.  Utilizing the outline and using metadata along with alternate text gives you the best opportunity to be accessibility compliant.

While the thought of making your items such as Word documents or PowerPoint presentations accessible may sound a little scary, I hope I’ve been able to show you a few very simple ways you can help make these items accessible for anyone that may be using or viewing them.

This entry was posted on November 5, 2007 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Testing. Tagged: 508, accessibility, alt text, alternative text, jaws, PowerPoint, screen reader, Word. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

“Simple!” we said.  “Just add alt text to the watermark.” Then our client asked, “How?”

That is when we discovered that there is no clear way to add alt text to a watermark in Microsoft Word.

I spent a great deal of effort and time searching the Word help topics, Microsoft’s KB articles and Googling every phrase combination I could think for watermarks and accessibility. I could not find anything that would tell me how to add alt text to a watermark in a Word document.

Even our contacts at Microsoft didn’t have an answer for us. Then just as I was about to give up I discovered the secret of the watermark alt text. The secret is revealed below. But before you head off to happily add alt text to the watermarks in your documents you should know that screen readers will not read them. At least the two major contenders in this market do not read them…JAWS and Window Eyes. I didn’t try any of the other screen readers yet and I figure it is a safe bet that other screen readers will not read the watermark’s alt text either.

Now you may ask, “Why bother telling me how to configure the alt text for a watermark if the screen readers don’t read them in the first place?” Well if you have to deal with Section 508 requirements or any other accessibility guidelines then you need to make the effort now to ensure that your documents are compliant in the future. Otherwise you may find yourself going back and retrofitting your documents and you don’t want to have to do that!

I also have it from a very good source that while JAWS v9.0 will not read these watermarks when released the ability to read the alt text for watermarks in Word will be addressed in the next update after v9.0. So it appears that JAWS will have this ability in the very near future. I also know that GW Micro has been informed of this issue and that they will be working on fixing that issue in their next major release.

One more thing I should mention before I let you in on the details of how to add alt text to your watermarks. The process is not totally keyboard accessible. At some point you will have to use your mouse to complete the process. Microsoft has been informed of this and will be apparently be addressing this issue in a future release of Office. With all these ‘future release promises’ you can be sure that we’ll be watching to see if they follow through! ?

So on with the show! The steps outlined below are for adding alt text to a watermark in Word 2003. If you have a need to add alt text to a watermark in Word 2007 the steps are a bit more convoluted and I just didn’t care to confuse the matter by trying to explain that process. If you have a need to add alt text to a watermark in Word 2007 and just can’t figure it out on your own, just post a comment here asking for it and I’ll be happy to guide you along the way.

How to add ALT TEXT to a Watermark in Office 2003 Word

1. Select ‘Format’ from the menu bar. (Alt + O)
2. Select ‘Background’ from the Format menu that appears. (K)
3. Select ‘Printed Watermark…’ from the Background menu that appears. (W)
4. When the ‘Printed Watermark’ dialog appears select the type of watermark you wish to use, a text or picture watermark.
5. Once you have added the watermark of your choice and closed out of the ‘Printed Watermark’ dialog you will need to add the ALT TEXT. Select ‘View’ from the menu bar. (Alt + V)
6. Select ‘Header and Footer’ from the View menu when it appears. (H)
7. If you added a picture watermark then:
   • Select the Watermark object on the page, right click on it and select ‘Format Picture…’. This will open the Format Picture dialog.
   • Select the ‘Web’ tab on the Format Picture dialog and add the Alternative Text you wish to be associated with your Watermark.
   • Close the Format Picture dialog and save your document.
8. If you added a text watermark then:
   • Select the Watermark object on the page, right click on it and select ‘Format WordArt…’. This will open the Format WordArt dialog.
   • Select the ‘Web’ tab on this dialog and add the Alternative Text you wish to be associated with your Watermark.
   • Close the Format WordArt dialog and save your document.

This entry was posted on November 17, 2007 at 1:37 am and is filed under Accessiblity and JAWS, Accessiblity and MS Office, Accessiblity and Window Eyes. Tagged: alt text, alternate text, jaws, Microsoft Office, Office, section 508, watermark, watermarks, Window Eyes, Word, Word 2003. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.