[nabs-l] To Michael regarding your Excel issue-possible solution

[Arielle Silverman]

Hi Michael,
I sent your Excel file to my husband who is an Excel whiz, and I think
he might have diagnosed the problem. See below. Basically, the sheet
is password-protected, and whoever protected it set it so that
protected cells can't be navigated with the keyboard even though they
are visible on the screen. I'm sharing this with the whole list in
case any of you have run into a similar problem or will in the future.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jason Gwinn <jasondgwinn at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 23:18:35 -0700
Subject: Re: weird Excel file
To: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>

Hi Michael,

Arielle (my wife) passed the Excel file on to me, and I think I've spotted
the problem.  Under the Review tab, Excel has a "protect worksheet" action,
which allows you to password-protect the worksheet from (accidental or
ill-informed) tampering.  You can hand-pick the few cells that stay
unlocked, which in this case are the cells that need to be edited and
updated, but everything else is protected unless you have the password,
including the cells that have column and row labels.  I've used this
myself, but one of the options I remember was whether or not to lock the
cells not just from editing, but also from being selected.  For most of the
cells, I cannot seem to select them even if I click right on them with the
mouse, so I suspect the creator of this spreadsheet checked the "locked
from selection" option, which means while the locked cells are still
displayed on-screen for eyeballs to read, JAWS is not even allowed to look
at them, because they cannot even be selected.  I think you need to check
with your boss and ask for the selection-lock to be removed; it won't
endanger the worksheet so long as editing is still locked, but it would
allow JAWS to browse the whole sheet.

Hope this helps,
Jason

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 7:54 PM, Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michael D Ausbun via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
> Date: Fri, 22 May 2015 00:53:16 +0000
> Subject: [nabs-l] Microsoft excell help please
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> >
> Cc: Michael D Ausbun <mausbun at unr.edu>
>
> Greetings, all:
>         I am unfamiliar with excel, which is bad since my job uses it
> heavily. Essentially, attached is what I would be working with. Anyone
> have any tips, all are appreciated!
> Respectfully,
> Michael
>