RE: HTML version of TABLE

Anytime anyone notices that generated HTML from a Microsoft product can be
improved should email me the HTML and their comments.

I've let the Office team know about this issue below.

Charles Oppermann
Program Manager, Active Accessibility, Microsoft Corporation
mailto:chuckop@microsoft.com http://microsoft.com/enable/
"A computer on every desk and in every home, usable by everyone!"

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Dardailler [mailto:danield@w3.org]
Sent: Thursday, June 11, 1998 7:06 AM
To: po@trace.wisc.edu
Cc: GL - WAI Guidelines WG (E-mail)
Subject: Re: HTML version of TABLE 



> For those who dont have excell 7 - I have enclosed herein an HTML
> version of the table.

The funny thing about this thread is that I thought for a moment that
Gregg was sending examples of bad and good tables and what sort of
linearization can be done with them !

No, Gregg is sending input for today's meeting.
 

Anyway, since I was in this mood, I'll just go over the short exercise 
of analyzing this table markup.

Besides the use of FONT and B, and other presentational markup, which
are not a blocking factor per se, what we see is something like

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>current #
<TD>current rating
<TR>
<TD>2.1
<TD>Required

This table is simple enough that the only thing it needs to become
accessible is using proper TH (header) markup for the first row:

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TH>current #
<TH>current rating
<TR>
<TD>2.1
<TD>Required

without that, the UA can only guest that it's a list of rows rather
that a list of columns. If you use TH, then you get bold effect for
free as well, of course.

> <META NAME=3D"Generator" CONTENT=3D"Microsoft Word 97">

Of course, Gregg is not to blame, since it's a generated table, from
Excel, where I doubt there is support for stating that a particular
row is a header row.

In any case, the TABLE guideline in this case is pretty simple: use
structure: mark header with TH (or THEAD), not B.

No need for this kind of simple table to include cross pointer
attributes from each cell to each header, with information about which
cell are headers, the UA can do that and generate the linear version
Gregg produced (how, I wonder, thru some Excell macro?) on the fly.

Received on Thursday, 11 June 1998 15:17:00 UTC