RE: MS Office and Accessibility

Denise,
thanks for that information. When you say you tested a simple Excel
spreadsheet, what was in that? Just cells of data with no charts, formulas,
linked worksheets? I think I know the answer already but not having the
relevant technology I can't check for myself.

I'm not too concerned about the interactivity atm, anything like that can
wait till all the info is held in a database. In the interim any
modifications to information held in the Office files is best done on the
users local machine. The modification of data is not a two way process afaik
i.e. any changes made by the user are for their own use and do not need to
be saved back to the web server.

As far as saving Office docs as html goes - given the bloated and peculiar
code this method produces, that is my last choice solution. However, in the
interests of corporate harmony I think this may have to be the way to go.
The problem is the sheer volume of files (over 2000!) and an understandable
unwillingness on my colleagues' part to start a new system from scratch. I
know it should all have gone into a database from day 1 and I think they're
realising that now. 

regards
Julian

-----Original Message-----
From: Denise Wood [mailto:Denise.Wood@unisa.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 6:04 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: MS Office and Accessibility


Thanks David 
Yes I tested both Word files saved as html via Office 97 and as web pages
from Office 2000, and also a simple spreadsheet saved as a web page from
Excel 2000 using Lynx with Windows Eyes and all of these files were fine
both viewed on screen and with spoken output.
However they were not overly sophisticated files so would need to test for
robustness using a wider range of Office formatting options and
functionality. Also, I neglected to ask Julian in my email if he is
embedding the files as application specific resources because he wants the
interactivity. If that is the case then no, you can't (well in my experience
any way) achieve that in a non-browser specific way. Embedded interactivity
requires IE 4 or higher.
Denise 
Dr Denise L Wood 
Lecturer: Professional Development (online teaching and learning) 
University of South Australia 
CE Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000 
Ph:    (61 8) 8302 2172 / (61 8) 8302 4472 (Tuesdays & Thursdays) 
Fax:  (61 8) 8302 2363 / (61 8) 8302 4390 
Mob: (0413 648 260) 
Email:  Denise.Wood@unisa.edu.au 
WWW:    http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?Name=Denise.Wood




-----Original Message----- 
From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman1@home.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2001 2:08 AM 
To: Denise Wood; 'Scarlett Julian (ED)'; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org 
Subject: Re: MS Office and Accessibility 


have you tried them out with screen readers?  I often find that there 
are no alt tags and that many of the links are marked up poorly. 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Denise Wood" <Denise.Wood@unisa.edu.au> 
To: "'Scarlett Julian (ED)'" <Julian.Scarlett@sheffield.gov.uk>; 
<w3c-wai-ig@w3.org> 
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 12:33 PM 
Subject: RE: MS Office and Accessibility 


Julian 
Can't you save the documents as html documents (if office 97) or web 
pages (if 
office 2000). I have views a few different files saved via Word and 
Excel in IE 
5, NS 4 and Lynx and they all open OK. 
Denise 
Dr Denise L Wood 
Lecturer: Professional Development (online teaching and learning) 
University of South Australia 
CE Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5000 
Ph:    (61 8) 8302 2172 / (61 8) 8302 4472 (Tuesdays & Thursdays) 
Fax:  (61 8) 8302 2363 / (61 8) 8302 4390 
Mob: (0413 648 260) 
Email: Denise.Wood@unisa.edu.au 
WWW: 
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?Name=Denise.Wood 



-----Original Message----- 
From: Scarlett Julian (ED) [mailto:Julian.Scarlett@sheffield.gov.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2001 1:02 AM 
To: 'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org' 
Subject: re: MS Office and Accessibility 


Firstly, apologies for the "Hi all" greeting and the corporate 
disclaimer 
that my employer tags onto the end of all my emails for me. I have no 
choice 
but to post to public lists from work so you'll have to just pretend you 
didn't see it ;-) 
Secondly, my badly phrased original post has thrown up some interesting 
answers. I accept the points about access of proprietary file formats 
causing problems but what I was really after was whether or not the 
presence 
of a .doc or .xls or .ppt file opening within a browser ( I chose IE 
because 
I don't think NS automatically tries to open them) would cause problems 
for 
screen readers. Sorry, I should have been more specific in my original 
query. 
The users for this portion of the site are schools that all have a 
common 
desktop installation (MS Office 97, NT4, IE5+) and hence the specificity 
of 
my question. Ideally I would get all infomation presented in html but to 
do 
this I have to get the info owners in our organisation to agree. They 
are 
under the illusion that because their client group all have Office that 
it 
is ok to serve up Office files rather than html pages. I need a solid 
argument why they can't do this . 


Julian Scarlett 
Web Design & Document Management System Officer 
PPU 
Education Directorate 
Sheffield City Council 
0114 2735721 
mob 07904914976 
julian.scarlett@sheffield.gov.uk 
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Received on Tuesday, 23 October 2001 03:22:01 UTC