Word accessibility features Screen reader compatibility
Screen reader compatibility for Microsoft Office accessibility features.
The results include two types of test:
- Expected to work - these tests show support when accessibility features are used correctly
- Expected to fail - these tests show what happens when accessibility features are used incorrectly (marked with )
Works as expected
These tests use conformant HTML or WCAG sufficient techniques, and work in all tested browser / screen reader combinations.
Screen Reader | NVDA | JAWS | VoiceOver | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Browser | Edge | FF | Cr | Edge | FF | Cr | Mac | iOS |
Word inserted PNG image with Alt Text in Title and Description fields | ||||||||
Word inserted PNG image with Alt Text in the Description field |
Expected to work
These tests use conformant HTML or WCAG sufficient techniques and might be expected to work in screen readers. This doesn't always happen.
Expected to fail
These tests use non-conformant HTML or WCAG failures and are expected to fail in screen readers.
Screen Reader | NVDA | JAWS | VoiceOver | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Browser | Edge | FF | Cr | Edge | FF | Cr | Mac | iOS |
Word inserted PNG image with no Alt Text | ||||||||
Word table with no header row |
Key
Tests expected to fail (due to authoring errors) are marked with .
- Works in 100% of tested screen readers
- Fails in 1% - 25% of tested screen readers
- Fails in 26% - 50% of tested screen readers
- Fails in 51% - 75% of tested screen readers
- Fails in 76% - 100% of tested screen readers
- Stable - works, or doesn't cause problems, in all versions of a specific combination of screen reader and browser
- Better - works, or doesn't cause problems, in the most recent version of a specific combination of screen reader and browser (improvement)
- Worse - causes problems in the most recent version of a specific combination of screen reader and browser, but used to work in older versions (regression)
- Broken - causes problems in all versions of a specific combination of screen reader and browser
Test notes
All tests were carried out with screen reader factory settings. JAWS in particular has a wide variety of settings controlling exactly what gets spoken.
Screen readers allow users to interact in different modes, and can produce very different results in each mode. The modes used in these tests are:
- Reading Content read using the “read next” command in a screen reader
- Tabbing Content read using the “tab” key in a screen reader
- Heading Content read using the “next heading” key in a screen reader
- Touch Content read when touching an area of screen on a mobile device
In the “What the user hears” column:
- Commas represent short pauses in screen reader voicing
- Full Stops represent places where voicing stops, and the “read next” or “tab” or “next heading” command is pressed again
- Ellipsis … represent a long pause in voicing
- (Brackets) represent voicing that requires a keystroke to hear