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When tables are not structured accessibly, the data they contain can quickly become a meaningless sea of numbers, facts and figures to someone moving through them a cell at a time. Readers who cannot see the table cannot use visual cheats like checking the alignment and scanning back to the top headings to orient themselves as they go. Equivalent information needs to be encoded into the table to facilitate comprehension.
Tables are meant to be used for tabular information (data). Tables should never be used to lay out documents. When editing a book, recreate charts and tables using the default functionality of the software (i.e. the Insert Table
tool).
Tables have a logical reading order from left to right and top to bottom. Screenreader users can easily navigate to and examine data in tables. There are specific keyboard controls for reading tables that differ to the controls for reading regular text. When non-tabular text is rendered with tables, the reading controls are incorrect. This can make it confusing and difficult to read the document with a screenreader.
Do not present non-tabular information in a table format even if it presented as such in a book (i.e. a grocery list with two columns). Present such information as a list in two columns (see Formatting Columns).
normal
depending on the context. If you are unsure please contact the Production Coordinator.
Keep your tables simple without any extra modifications.
Captions come with the table (they’re provided by the publisher.) Descriptions, or Alt-text, is usually not provided by the publisher, and that’s what we add in. Just like with images, you will need to reinsert the captions. See below for more details.
Title
field in table priorities. See below for details.
Title
field in table priorities. See below for details.
A description should always be included to give context to a table. Never rely on the surrounding text to explain the presence of a table, especially when the table is offset from the content.
Descriptions should answer the question: “What is the table’s purpose and how is it organized?”
Example:
"A sample order form with separate columns for the item name, price and quantity."
Remember to keep the description short and direct. A good guideline it to keep it around 140 words. See the Alt-Text page for more information.
Table Properties
. See below for details.
Table Properties
.Description
area.Title
field.Captions are provided by the publisher, and are treated the same way as we would a caption for an image with one small difference–the caption goes above the table as opposed to below it.
Insert Caption
.For more information on Captions in general go to Captions page.
Table cells should be marked as table headers or header rows when they serve as labels to help interpret the other cells in the table. Correctly identified headers provide metadata that the reader can call up as needed as they navigate the data points.
Header Row
check box.This ensures the header row is repeated across pages. Do this even if the table does not go over multiple pages:
Repeat as header row at the top of each page
Header Row
check box.This ensures the header row is repeated across pages. Do this even if the table does not go over multiple pages so the screen reader can identify the header row from the rest of the table:
Repeat Header Row
button (it should be located to the far left of the ribbon menu)Repeat as header row at the top of each page
Allow row to break across pages
is unchecked (make sure to uncheck this for each row by clicking on Next Row then unchecking, etc.).Formatting Tip
How to Convert a Table to Normal Text
Tips for Fitting Large Tables Within Page Margins
Q: Unsure if the tables were formatted correctly in Appendix A at the end of the book 101 ways to meeting angels by Karen Paolino.
From the Tables section of the wiki: "A caption or description should always be included to give context to a table"
I am interpreting the 'or' in 'caption or description' to mean to include one of the two (either caption or description). But given our past conversation on inclusion of alt text, perhaps i should be including both? Caption and Description? But when I followed the wiki's instructions to add a description, it was greyed out and I was unable to edit it, so only captions are present for the tables.
A: I will fix the wording in the wiki, but every table should have Alt-Text. When it comes to not being able to access the Alt-Text in the table priorities, it looks like this is an issue with they way the document was saved. Just resave and replace the document using the 'Save As' option and double check to ensure it is saving as a .docx file. It will prompt you to replace the file, just accept and replace the file. It should now work!
I creates a short video to illustrate what I mean: https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cYn6q2wTtP
Word is a finicky beast!
Q: Follow up question regarding the song title tables in Four Boys and a Guitar: When I'm making a separate table for each song, I have been putting the song title in the spot labeled "Title" under Table Properties - Alt Text. However, when you look at the tables on the page, there is no visible indication of the song title for each table. I'm wondering if it would improve usability for sighted users to add a level H2 header in front of each table with the song title for that table?
A: Yes, adding the heading and the title in the alt-text priorities works.
Q: I have come to the appendixes at the end of this book and there is a very long and complex table in Appendix D (starts on page 195 of the PDF, titled Mills Brothers Discography–by song title) that I could use some direction on. It's going to take a lot of time and I just want to make sure I'm tackling it the best way before I start. The issue I'm having is the subheadings for each song title. Here's a screenshot of one way I thought of to deal with them. But I'm also wondering if it would be better to create a separate table for each song. What do you think?
A: In this case you should create separate tables for each song title.
Set the heading of the section as 'Mills Brothers Discography–By Song Title
Set each table tile as simply the song title.
Q: There is a table in "The Canadian Prairies" that I am struggling with. The table is extensive and is split into two pages, and the header column is only visible on the first page - should I combine them into a single table?
A:You can combine it into the same table. If you follow the instructions on header rows in the wiki it will be fine: https://bclc.wiki.libraries.coop/doku.php?id=public:nnels:etext:tables#table_headers
Q: I am editing a book that has very long tables that are images. I obviously need to convert them to readable tables in Word, but my question is should I create on very large table, or should I cut it down into smaller tables?
A: In this case you can break the sub-sections down into their own tables with each disorder its own table. You can caption each table with the name of the disorder.
Q: In Theomatics, instead of creating tables the author has used images. Should I put a producers note in for each 'table'?
A: Images of tables need to be presented as tables, just as images of text should be presented as text. You can see how to make accessible tables here:Tables. If you have questions about creating tables, let us know! We may need to add in a short alt description if the table is not sufficiently described in the surrounding text.
Q: Theomatics uses tables-A LOT-but it seems like they are not necessary. It appears that tables are used for formatting spacing, as opposed to actually creating a table. For example; the Chapter headings are in tables (which I remove.) But what should I do with the other 'tables'? There are instances in the book where similar information is presented as a list, and not a table. Should I just remove the tables and have the information formatted as 'Normal' with paragraph breaks between each line? I have included a screen shout of a page from the .doc file and the .epub file as examples. UPDATE: I have been thinking more about this as I move through editing other parts of the book. These sections could work as bulleted lists. If you need more examples I can give you other page numbers, or just open the epub yourself. There are oh so many.
A: You've got that right - none of the tables in this book should be there (as far as I can tell). As you say, they've been used for formatting purposes, a big no-no. All the tables should be converted to text within the narrative flow. I don't think these are true lists (a list of items); I would format these as normal paragraph text.
WCAG 2.0 — H39: Using caption elements to associate data table captions with data tables