IMPORTANT: You have to select Scope as None if you are setting heading IDs. For each of these cells I selected Type: Header Cell and Scope: None and gave G1, B1 and G2, B2 as IDs. Second row carry second level header cells for my table. I did the same for Maths Marks Average header cell and gave ID as Math. If your table has headers spanning rows you will have to do similar to rows. Figure 1: Table Cell Properties for first level header This is not read out by the screen reader and only used to indicate the structure) ID: English (you can give any name you want as long as it makes sense to you.So for the header cell English Marks Average in the Table Cell Properties I selected: We need to make use of Column Span, Row Span, Scope, ID and Associated Header Cell IDs to give the correct structure to the screen reader software.Įnglish Marks Average and Maths Marks Average are column headers spanning two columns. This table structure is not correctly read out by the screen reader as it stands. Row three English Marks Average Girls column one 81. Maths Marks Average column two 82. Row two English Marks Average column one Girls. Maths Marks Average column two Boys. Table with three rows and four columns row one column one English Marks Average. However, NVDA screen reader was not reading the structure of the table correctly.
#Table accessibility screen reader how to#
If you are unfamiliar with how to do this please visit Accessible PDFs – Document Structure (2/5) blog post. Here I have two merged cells making it a complex table.įirst I assigned TH (Table Header) and TD (Table Data) to correct the table’s structure.
#Table accessibility screen reader pdf#
PDF Accessibility Repair: Examine and Repair TablesĪny table that has merged rows or columns or more than one level of heading are complex tables.These two resources were very useful to me in developing my understanding of complex tables: Here I will share what I learnt in the blog. So I installed the NVDA (free screen reader) software and tried it myself. However, I wasn’t sure of how to make complex PDFs tables accessible. I have shown how Table headers and Data Cells should be defined in Accessible PDFs – Document Structure (2/5) blog post. It is difficult for screen reader users to visualise tables unless they are correctly tagged. Accessible PDFs – Accessibility Checking (4/5).Accessible PDFs – Tags and Reading Order (3/5).Accessible PDFs – Document Structure (2/5).This is the last post of Accessible PDFs series of blogs that I am doing.