Hi, I'm not clear on where you are having trouble. When a set of cells are merged, JAWS will read their contents just as it does if the info is in a single cell. People usually merge cells for visual layout, or to help deal with large amounts of information that other wise could not be read if put into a single cell the size of that cell would have to be quite large.
Off of the top of my head, I'm not coming up with a reason why someone might merge cells vertically as in the example you just gave. But here is an example of how someone might use cells merged horizontally. In the first row cells A1 thru X1 are merged and contain the text "Monthly expense data for 2 years". This is the title for the entire set of data and it is centered within this very long cell. In the next row cells A2 thru L2 are merged and read "2008", and next to it cells M2 thru X2 are merged and read "2009". In the next row cells A3 thru L3 each contain the name of each month for 2008, Jan Feb Mar...Dec, and cells M3 thru X2 again contain the names of the months for the year 2009. All of the cells in the rows below the names of the months contain the data. Now to make this data a bit easier to be read by a screen reader user, I would eliminate row 2 and change the information in row 3 to read, Jan 2008, Feb 2008, Mar 2008...Jan 2009, Feb 2009, Mar 2009..., etc. I hope this make sense and you find it helpful. Annette -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Bill Tipton Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 7:01 PM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: [JAWS-Users] Excel and Merged Cells Hi, How do you read an Excel work book with merged cells with JAWS 11? I have Excel 2007. The cells are merged in a variety of ways throughout. Example: a6-a47 are merged. Move one cell over to the right and: B6-b9 are merged. I need to read and edit this document and keep the formatting intact. If this is not possible with JAWS, I had 2 questions. 1. How can I unmerge all cells at once so I can read all of the data. 2. Is there some guidelines that talk about Excel accessibility I can share with the person who created this spreadsheet to help them make it accessible. Thank you for any help you can provide to enable me to read and edit this document. Bill For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4940 (20100312) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4940 (20100312) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
