[blindLaw] SOS --Need for Testing Beta 2020 and Microsoft 2016

[James T. Fetter]

First of all, I'm just sick hearing about this and very sorry that you 
have to deal with all of this all over again. I also agree that 
Microsoft and Vespero should?? have their feet held to the fire, up to 
and including being uninvited from national conventions, if they 
continue to demonstrate this level of indifference toward our ability to 
do our jobs.

Just a few questions:

1. What version of Office are you running? You mentioned 2016, so I 
assume you have that rather than 365.

2. I'd be happy to test the 2020 beta, but I'm running 365. I'm not sure 
how helpful that would be.

3. Have you tried NVDA? I have experienced fewer stability issues, but 
reviewing track changes is a more laborious process. I could be 
mistaken, but I do not know of any way to list all changes in NVDA, as 
is at least theoretically possible in Jaws.

Again, I am very sorry that you are dealing with this. You are not alone 
in this struggle. We will get there somehow.



On 10/11/2019 2:45 PM, Laura Wolk via BlindLaw wrote:
> All,
>
> The nightmarish scenario of Jaws reading all material,both old and
> new, in a track changed document seems to have arisen with a vengeance
> as of the late September release.  I have tried restarting jaws,
> restarting the computer, refreshing the screen, and switching to no
> markup.  Nothing works.
>
> My ability to work quickly and reliably has just been ground to a
> screeching halt.  Why not simply migrate back to an earlier update,
> you might ask?  Well, my friends, it's because **that** update was
> causing heavily track changed documents to crash as soon as the
> document was opened.  And how did Vispero come to know that fact?
> Because they tested it and identified hhe problem and committed
> themselves to fixing it as soon as possible?  No, of course not.
> Because my coworkers and I spent hours, literally hours, isolating the
> problem, creating a test document with nonsensitive information that
> replicated it, and sending it to them.  I am truly at my whits end.  I
> am a fully-employed person with a disability working at one of the
> most stressful and time consuming jobs in our profession.  And yet,
> here I am, using my work time to literally sit on the phone and
> **explain**, yes, **EXPLAIN, step-by-step, to Vispero employees how to
> **TURN ON Track CHANGES**, because they are so unfamiliar with this
> concept that they don't even know how to do it.  I do not have the
> time to take on a second full-time job just so I can do my first one.
> None of us do.  This is utterly unacceptable.  We need our leadership
> to step in now.  Stop bringing Microsoft to national conventions to
> wax eloquent about how much they care about accessibility if in fact
> they don't.  If in fact they are committed to not assisting at all
> with products that people still pay them to suppor, products that the
> entire federal government uses, products that just ask the blind to
> deal with it or risk losing their jobs.  Stop touting Jaws as if it's
> the best thing since sliced bread if, one week into the Supreme Court
> term, I now effectively cannot do my job, no, not have a harder time
> doing my job, but cannot do my job, because no one is testing this
> stuff before updates are released.  I am just incensed.
>
> I also need someone to test whether this problem is occurring on Beta
> 2020 with Word 2016.  I cannot get beta 2020 installed on my computer
> here.  But I need to verify whether it's fixed in that release.  I
> swear, if they try making me wait until December to fix this, I'm
> going to need some major reinforcements.
>
> Now please excuse me while I quickly go angry cry in the bathroom, put
> on my nice happy brave face again, and resign myself to spending
> thrice as much time on my work as I needed to spend yesterday.  Your
> prayers are appreciated.
>
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