[blindlaw] Update on Track Changes in Microsoft 2016 and 2019

[Laura Wolk]

All,

I have some more great news on the track change front.  As of the June
Jaws release, many of the most detrimental track change issues have
been fixed in Microsoft Office 2016.  These include:
1. Jaws reporting an accurate number of revisions in the virtual viewer.
2. Footnotes and comments no longer being sluggish/gaining the ability
to select text in footnotes and comments so long as all markup is
chosen.
3. Being able to pull up a list of revisions in footnotes in the
virtual viewer, as long as the cursor is in the footnote pane when you
do this.
4. Jaws now says the call number of the footnote as you navigate the
footnote pane, and when navigating above the line, it says the word
"footnote" or "endnote" when it reaches the call number.

changes that are not incorporated include:
1. not hearing the exact type of revision in-line as you navigate the
document; Jaws just says "revision"
2. When the Braille display is plugged in, switching to all markup
does not fix the footnote sluggishness problem.  In addition, dots 78
still display across the footnote, Braille Marking doesn't work, and
the cursor routing buttons do not work.  I'm going to try my darnedest
to get this addressed.  But this is a vast improvement.  I'd love it
if anyone could verify they've noticed these changes also.

I have also been told that all issues have been addressed in Office
2019.  I don't have access to that version though.  If someone is an
Office 2019 user, please be in touch.

I think I will have more updates RE 365 tomorrow.  I had meant to
provide updates on that front in this email as well, but somehow, in
tinkering with my home machine, which is older and more finicky, I've
inadvertently broken something and none of my programs are responding
as expected.  If anyone wants to trade some accessible word for a home
or remote computer consult, let me know!  In the meantime, I've had
enough robotic synthesizers for one day!  Stay tuned for th enext
episode.

Thanks!

Laura
On 5/1/19, Laura Wolk <laura.wolk at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am very happy to report some extremely positive changes on the Track
> Change front.  I just met with members of Vispero and Microsoft for
> two hours to review many of the changes that we have proposed.  Almost
> all of them are implemented in the latest version of Jaws that was
> just released today.  As I expected, these are only being implemented
> in Microsoft Office 365.   I highly encourage everyone who is
> experiencing difficulties with track Changes to work with their
> employers to obtain Office 365 as a reasonable accommodation, and
> folks at the Microsoft Enterprise answer Desk should be available to
> field any questions and to verify that in fact Office 365 is the most
> fully functionable, accessible version of Office with Jaws.  Anyway,
> here are the changes I verified.
>
> 1. Jaws now displays the **correct!** number of revisions in a
> document in a mere matter of seconds. We tested this with a document
> with 406 revisions.  Jaws almost immediately announced the number, and
> I had to wait about four seconds for the full list to load.  Game
> changer.
> 2. Jaws now announces the revisions in-line exactly where they occur,
> instead of just stating "revision" or "insertion" at the beginning of
> the line.  Jaws also now announces font change attributes immediately
> following the change.  A few notes on this:
> a. In the virtual viewer list, Jaws still just says "revised
> property."  But they know how to fix this and aim to have it addressed
> in the June release.  But to reiterate, the precise font changes are
> announced in-line as you scroll with Jaws using the arrow keys.
> b.  Currently, the font attribute change is also displayed in words on
> the Braille display.  This is cumbersome, especially in legal
> documents.  They are going to try to figure out a way to toggle
> whether that information is displayed in Braille.  Again to be clear,
> this only occurs when you're looking at font attribute revisions, not
> every time you make a font change when track changes aren't on.
> 3. And now the moment we've all been waiting for... Footnotes are no
> longer sluggish!  **and** you can actually select text!  Same goes for
> comment bubbles!  Notes.
> a.  This currently only works in all markup.  It does not work in
> simple markup.  They are aware of this and know how to change it, and
> aim to have it addressed in the June release.
> b. To change mark up modes, hit alt, r, t, d, then arrow down to
> select the mark up mode you desire.
> 4. cursor routing buttons work in footnotes, dots 7-8 no longer
> display throughout the entire footnote, and Braille marking properly
> works in footnotes.
> 5. You can now access revisions in the footnotes.  You have to have
> all markup selected, and you have to be in the footnote pane when you
> call up the virtual viewer.  They are working on a way to have them
> accessible from above the line as well.
> 6. Jaws announcing revisions even when track changes are off:
> Currently, this is occurring because control+shift+e is a Microsoft
> keystroke that tells the program to stop tracking changes, but even
> when it's off, the underlying "code" is still there so that the
> revisions will display again once you turn the feature back on.  Jaws
> still has acces to that code, even if you toggle track changes off,
> and sometimes this causes confusion.  If this happens, change markup
> to no markup by hitting alt, r, t, d and arrowing down to no mark up.
> That should solve it.
>
> The teams are also aware of the issue regarding pasting large amounts
> of text into comments causing the programs to crash.  They aim to
> address that as well.
>
> Again, I am sorry that we will not be seeing changes in 2016 or 2013,
> but this honestly is a quicker and more robust solution than I ever
> expected, and i am very pleased.
>
> Thanks,
>