[blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes

Shannon Dillon shannonldillon at gmail.com
Wed Dec 19 21:55:53 UTC 2018


Hi Shannon,
Using track changes is more sophisticated than putting a star and
initials by the change. Usually, when JAWS is working, you can see in
one font what was inserted, what was deleted, and multiple people make
changes to the same document. Also, the changes are indicated by font
as you make them. If you insert something, it shows up in a different
font as you are typing it and if you delete something, the font
changes as you delete it. So you don't have to go back and highlight
something and use strikeout to show it is deleted, or highlight it and
indicate with bold or italics you added it. Track changes does it all
in one step. And if you agree with the change you can click an accept
button. Or you can reject it. If you had to manually select your
change and change the font for hundreds of changes in one document
made by a bunch of people, it would just take so much time to go back
and manually get rid of all the changes after you decide whether you
agree or disagree with them. Hope this very simple explanation makes
sense.



On 12/19/18, Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rahul,  Thank you!  Can you please make sure that the document
> includes footnotes that also contain revisions?  Also, I would make
> sure the document contains all the types of revisions we might expect,
> i.e., deletions, insertions, changing font attributes like changing a
> word into italics, and perhaps making a paragraph insertion.  Note
> where they are and how Jaws communicates that info to you as you are
> reading through the document, and the rest of us who test will do the
> same.
>
> To drive home the point that Jaws never captures track changes in
> footnotes, can you please also make a second, very simple document
> with one footnote containing one revision, and verify that jaws tells
> you that the document contains no revisions?  You can send them to me
> off-list with your notes about how many revisions there are, how many
> are reported, and where specific types of revisions are so that we can
> see what Jaws tells us.
>
> If you're interested in being a part of the testing list, send me an
> email at laura.wolk at gmail.com and let me know the version of jaws,
> windows, and office you use.
>
> Thanks, everyone!  So glad I didn't hold back from my soapboxing on
> Saturday!
>
> On 12/19/18, Shannon Dillon via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> Hi. I just wanted to thank Rahul for the directions and Laura for
>> initiating the track changes thread. I've been fighting with track
>> changes forever and it seems to have gotten worse. Thanks everyone for
>> sharing their work-arounds and experiences. I'm so glad we can work on
>> this together with VFO.
>> Shannon
>>
>>
>> On 12/19/18, Angie Matney via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>> Rahul, Thank you for this information and for producing a sample
>>> document.
>>>
>>> Thanks also for the alternate ways to see how a document looks when all
>>> changes are accepted. I often need to have "clean" files that either
>>> incorporaqe or reject all revisions. I do this with the "accept all
>>> changes"
>>> and "reject all changes" commands, which can be accessed with alt-r, a,
>>> l,
>>> and alt-r, j l in Word 2016, respectively.
>>>
>>> Thanks again. I'm going to experiment with custom keystrokes.
>>>
>>> Angie
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>>> On Dec 19, 2018, at 2:16 PM, Rahul Bajaj via BlindLaw
>>>> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I will definitely share a document by tomorrow which in fact has more
>>>> revisions than are captured by the list of revisions in the virtual
>>>> viewer. I have a document at this juncture which has 105 revisions as
>>>> per the list and the number seems to be the same as per my manual
>>>> calculation, so I will make around 300 more random revisions to it to
>>>> be able to drive home the disconnect between the revisions manually
>>>> discernible and those automatically listed.
>>>>
>>>> Angie,
>>>>
>>>> In order to set key strokes for moving to previous and next revisions,
>>>> in word 16, you have to go into file (which is before the home tab
>>>> when you press alt in Word)> options> customize> popular commands>
>>>> review. Then if you press tab, you will be presented with a list from
>>>> which you can choose "previous change/ comment" and "next change/
>>>> comment" respectively. You can set a keystroke for each by pressing
>>>> tab and entering the keystroke in the appropriate field. I have set
>>>> them as alt+left arrow for previous and alt+ right arrow for next.
>>>>
>>>> Also, as regards your latest email, 2 solutions which might help you
>>>> are:
>>>>
>>>> 1. copy-pasting a document with track changes turned on into a new
>>>> document. This results in all the changes being automatically
>>>> accepted.
>>>> 2. In Word 16, go to review> tracking> display for review> no mark-up
>>>> to see how the document would look if all changes were accepted.
>>>> Please see for more information:
>>>> https://support.office.com/en-us/article/track-changes-in-word-197ba630-0f5f-4a8e-9a77-3712475e806a
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>> Rahul<div id="DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br />
>>>> <table style="border-top: 1px solid #D3D4DE;">
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>>>> alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"
>>>> /></a></td>
>>>>        <td style="width: 470px; padding-top: 12px; color: #41424e;
>>>> font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
>>>> line-height: 18px;">Virus-free. <a
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>>>> height="1"></a></div>
>>>>
>>>>> On 19/12/2018, Angela Matney via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>> I wanted to supplement this thread with an example from this
>>>>> afternoon.
>>>>> I've
>>>>> been tasked with reviewing certain edits to an agreement between our
>>>>> client
>>>>> and a vendor located in Germany. The document contains both English
>>>>> and
>>>>> German text, and the bulk of it is presented as a table in MS Word
>>>>> with
>>>>> three columns (numbering, English text, and German text) and 242 rows.
>>>>> I
>>>>> used the JAWS command to list revisions. JAWS seemed to process this
>>>>> for
>>>>> a
>>>>> few seconds, but ultimately, both JAWS and MS-Word crashed and had to
>>>>> restart.
>>>>>
>>>>> I used the "reject all changes" and "accept all changes" commands in
>>>>> Word
>>>>> to
>>>>> produce versions with and without the edits. Unfortunately, I have
>>>>> trouble
>>>>> with the most recent iteration of our document comparison software,
>>>>> even
>>>>> though its output is accessible. I sent these two documents to my
>>>>> assistant,
>>>>> who will prepare a blackline for me that does not make use of
>>>>> track-changes.
>>>>> (I could also have asked her to reject and accept the changes to
>>>>> produce
>>>>> the
>>>>> baseline documents, but I chose to do that part of it myself.)
>>>>>
>>>>> While I don't typically deal with documents that have text in more
>>>>> than
>>>>> one
>>>>> language, or documents that are almost completely in tabular format,
>>>>> this
>>>>> is
>>>>> not the first time, and it won't be the last. Reliable support for
>>>>> track-changes in complex documents would be a game-changer for me.
>>>>>
>>>>> Angie
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2018 10:44 AM
>>>>> To: Angela Matney <amatney at loeb.com>
>>>>> Cc: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>;
>>>>> slabarre at labarrelaw.com;
>>>>> tim at timeldermusic.com
>>>>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes
>>>>>
>>>>> This email originated from outside of Loeb's Network.
>>>>>
>>>>> OK, this is great.
>>>>>
>>>>> Scott, let me know if you have trouble following all of this if you
>>>>> are planning to outline in the letter our various issues with Jaws.
>>>>> As I see it, the problem is that Jaws ostensibly provides two ways of
>>>>> obtaining track change info.  Both are woefully inaccurate and
>>>>> inadequate.  It'd be fine with me if they scrapped one or the other
>>>>> method, so long as **one**  of them worked reliably.
>>>>>
>>>>> Rahul, I'd love it if you could generate a document, as I have a very
>>>>> busy few weeks coming up (which, incidentally, will involve many, many
>>>>> trackchanges. Ha!). If you are done with finals, perhaps you could
>>>>> generate a doc and then angie and I could test it as well to see what
>>>>> we come up with.  It'd be great if someone with Office 365 could hop
>>>>> on this as well, so that FS can't respond by saying "we're putting all
>>>>> our efforts into making Office 365 work properly, and it's too bad for
>>>>> the rest of you."
>>>>>
>>>>> Angie, perhaps under a different thread heading, you could let us know
>>>>> how you use comparison software as a work-around to some of this.  I
>>>>> have access to workshare compare, for instance, and if you have ways
>>>>> of using that to alleviate some of this headache, I'd love to hear
>>>>> them.  And perhaps in the short-term, we could ask for that program as
>>>>> an accommodation (yes, yes, I know this isn't ideal, but we also must
>>>>> get our work done).
>>>>>
>>>>> Lastly, Rahul, I'll write you off-list about your PDF issues so that I
>>>>> can be in touch with FS.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, everyone! This is the teamwork I love so much that the NFB
>>>>> provides. Anyone else with input, please voice your opinions.
>>>>>
>>>>> Laura
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12/19/18, Angela Matney <amatney at loeb.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Laura,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have had similar experiences. JAWS often reads both the original
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> revised text and fails to announce some revisions. I have problems
>>>>>> with
>>>>>> it
>>>>>> reliably announcing comments as well. I'm able to use our document
>>>>>> comparison software as a work-around some of the time, but there are
>>>>>> many
>>>>>> situations where being able to use track-changes would be helpful,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> our
>>>>>> software doesn't help with the comments issue.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Frankly, I wish that JAWS would not try to "interpret" track-changes
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> extent it does. I think I could be more efficient if it would just
>>>>>> read
>>>>>> changes in the font, attribute and color and let me figure things
>>>>>> out.
>>>>>> We
>>>>>> can produce documents like this with our document management
>>>>>> software.
>>>>>> When
>>>>>> JAWS tells me that something is blue and double-underlined, for
>>>>>> example,
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> recognize it as an insertion.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you would like some help generating a file with lots of revisions,
>>>>>> or
>>>>>> if
>>>>>> you'd like me to test something you generate, let me know.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Angie
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Angela Matney, CIPP/US
>>>>>> Attorney at Law
>>>>>> Admitted only in Virginia
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 901 New York Avenue NW, Suite 300 East | Washington, DC 20001
>>>>>> Direct Dial: 202.618.5038 | Fax: 202.403.3407 | E-mail:
>>>>>> amatney at loeb.com
>>>>>> Los Angeles | New York | Chicago | Nashville | Washington, DC | San
>>>>>> Francisco | Beijing | Hong Kong | www.loeb.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Laura Wolk
>>>>>> via
>>>>>> BlindLaw
>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2018 8:13 AM
>>>>>> To: slabarre at labarrelaw.com
>>>>>> Cc: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>; tim at timeldermusic.com; Blind
>>>>>> Law
>>>>>> Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This email originated from outside of Loeb's Network.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Scott,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I appreciate this so much.  Please let me know if you'd like any
>>>>>> assistance.  Regarding what to put in the letter, do other people
>>>>>> also
>>>>>> have the experience, as I do, that Jaws will read both the original
>>>>>> and edited text when you're reading through a document?  This didn't
>>>>>> used to happen to me, but now it does.  I'm using Office 2016,
>>>>>> Windows
>>>>>> 10, and hte latest version of Jaws.  Additionally, I find that Jaws
>>>>>> doesn't always announce "revision" when it detects track changes.
>>>>>> Can
>>>>>> others confirm?  This has the end result that relying on the file's
>>>>>> contents rather than the generated list also does not give the user
>>>>>> accurate information unless he engages in rather cumbersome
>>>>>> character-by-character analysis.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For the record, I did a bit more poking around on my file.  I tried
>>>>>> hitting ctrl+end as Rahul suggested, and that actually turned out
>>>>>> fewer revisions.  The list also only went to page 9 of a 25-page
>>>>>> document.  It gave me 154 revisions, when there were probably closer
>>>>>> to 400, and of course, as always, absolutely no info from footnotes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If no one else is able to assist, I will attempt to generate a file
>>>>>> with a few hundred track changes for FS to work with.  Perhaps this
>>>>>> could accompany the NABL letter.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Laura
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 12/18/18, Scott C. LaBarre <slabarre at labarrelaw.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello everyone, I've been following this thread with great interest
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>> am
>>>>>>> going to work on a letter from the National Association of Blind
>>>>>>> Lawyers
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> VFO about this issue and will likely also write MicroSoft.  Let me
>>>>>>> also
>>>>>>> take
>>>>>>> this moment to wish all of you the very best  of this holiday
>>>>>>> season.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>> Scott
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tim Elder
>>>>>>> via
>>>>>>> BlindLaw
>>>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2018 5:01 PM
>>>>>>> To: 'Laura Wolk' <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> Cc: tim at timeldermusic.com; 'Blind Law Mailing List'
>>>>>>> <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Understood.  I forwarded this to a contact at Microsoft to see if
>>>>>>> they
>>>>>>> could
>>>>>>> do anything while we wait on whatever the developer of JAWS is
>>>>>>> calling
>>>>>>> itself these days.  I've also been slowly learning NVDA to diversify
>>>>>>> my
>>>>>>> technology tools.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 6:25 PM
>>>>>>> To: tim at timeldermusic.com
>>>>>>> Cc: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nope. Not an option. And though 2010 didn't crash nearly as much as
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> newer versions, it still couldn't handle documents with more than a
>>>>>>> hundred
>>>>>>> or so revisions. Which, you know, is basically every round of
>>>>>>> editing
>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>> brief or large filing of any kind. Using 2010 was my work-around for
>>>>>>> 6
>>>>>>> years. But I'm really getting fed up. It'd be great if we all
>>>>>>> colectively
>>>>>>> could put pressure on Jaws to actually give us the tools we need to
>>>>>>> succeed
>>>>>>> and be on equal footing with our peers.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Dec 17, 2018, at 8:05 PM, <tim at timeldermusic.com>
>>>>>>> <tim at timeldermusic.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Track changes in newly created Word documents still work reliably
>>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> Office 2010 if using an older machine for this kind of task is an
>>>>>>> option.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2018 11:22 AM
>>>>>>>> To: Blind Law Mailing List <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
>>>>>>>> Subject: [blindlaw] Update on Jaws and Track Changes
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm providing an update to this topic, as it generated a lot of
>>>>>>>> traffic
>>>>>>> and I'd love to spare another lawyer the risk of relying on this
>>>>>>> $1,000
>>>>>>> disappointment to his professional detriment.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Jaws still does not announce the correct number of revisions.
>>>>>>>> Instead, after taking up to 30 or 45 seconds sometimes, it will
>>>>>>>> announce a
>>>>>>> much larger number that still isn't always accurate.  This is
>>>>>>> actually
>>>>>>> worse
>>>>>>> than when it simply said there were no revisions to display, since
>>>>>>> we
>>>>>>> all
>>>>>>> knew that was incorrect.  now it gives the false sense of security
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> you
>>>>>>> have, in fact, looked at every revision when there could be a
>>>>>>> hundred
>>>>>>> more
>>>>>>> that are not displaying that you haven't reviewed.  note that though
>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> isn't a terrible inconvenience when you are integrating all changes
>>>>>>> into
>>>>>>> one
>>>>>>> draft from only one document, it is a huge problem if you are
>>>>>>> receiving
>>>>>>> multiple streams of edits from multiple sources that you are trying
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> accept/reject and then compile into one final draft.  So be
>>>>>>> forewarned,
>>>>>>> Jaws
>>>>>>> is sstill failing abysmally at providing us with the elementary
>>>>>>> tools
>>>>>>> needed
>>>>>>> in 2018 to maintain "Job access."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> BlindLaw mailing list
>>>>>>> BlindLaw at nfbnet.org
>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindlaw_nfbnet.org
>>>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>> BlindLaw:
>>>>>>> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindlaw_nfbnet.org/slabarre%40labarrelaw.
>>>>>>> com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> BlindLaw mailing list
>>>>>> BlindLaw at nfbnet.org
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>>>>>> BlindLaw:
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> BlindLaw mailing list
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>>>>> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
>>>>> BlindLaw:
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>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> SHANNON L. DILLON
>> Secretary and Legislative Coordinator
>> National Federation of the Blind
>> of California
>> The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and
>> friends.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>


-- 
SHANNON L. DILLON
Secretary and Legislative Coordinator
National Federation of the Blind
of California
The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends.




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