[blindLaw] Navigating non-uniform tables in Word with JAWS

[Matney, Angela R.]

Hello everyone,

I need to edit and review Word documents that contain tables with non-uniform layouts. For example, most rows of a table in the document I’m currently working on contain three columns. But some rows are used as headings, and the heading spans all three columns, though it’s a single cell in the table. The problem is that if I use control-alt-down to navigate to the next row, JAWS will skip over these “heading” rows unless I am in the first column. This is somewhat annoying, as the first column basically contains nothing but numbers, and I would prefer to “skim” the table by staying on the second column, which contains the substantive entries. But I would like JAWS to announce the headings and not simply skip to the next row containing three columns.

I’ve also experienced this with tables where the columns do not have the same number of rows. (And, in one mind-altering instance, with a table that had both of these going on!)

I’ve searched (OK, maybe it was a fairly cursory search…) for JAWS settings that might impact this behavior, but I haven’t yet found anything. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Angie (AKA Vexed in Virginia)


Angela R. Matney, CIPP/US (Angie)
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