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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