JAWS - Set up automatic column title and row title reading in Excel

JAWS - Set up automatic column title and row title reading in Excel

Problem

A JAWS customer wishes to have row or column titles read back as they navigate with arrow keys in an Excel worksheet.

Resolution

JAWS can be made to speak row and column titles in Excel documents when navigating from cell to cell. This can be useful when navigating large Excel sheets where you may be many rows or columns deep (away from any row/column titles).  There are two methods you can use to get JAWS to automatically read row or column titles during navigation in Excel documents:

• If the user is the author or has permission to edit the worksheet they can define named ranges to add column or row title reading.
• If the user is not the document author and does not have permission to edit the document itself they can use the instructions under method 2 to enable column or row title reading or they can use method 3 if it seems to be suitable.


Method 1 - Using named ranges 

JAWS can be made to respond reading column or row titles using named range in an Excel worksheet.  


Define column titles

Column tiles normally appear on a row in a worksheet, when navigating LEFT/RIGHT ARROW between columns you may wish the title of each column be read. 

  1. In the open Excel document navigate to the row of column titles and place the cell point on the left most cell of the column titles.
  2. Press CONTROL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW to highlight all the column titles.
  3. Press CONTROL+F3 to open the name range dialogue.
  4. Press ALT+N to create a new named range.
  5. At the name prompt enter the text: ColumnTitle
  6. Press TAB to reach  OK button and press SPACEBAR.
  7. Then press TAB to reach Close button and press ENTER to complete the definition.

Define Row Titles

Row titles normally appear in a column to the left of any data in the worksheet.  The row titles may speak as you use UP/DOWN arrow to move through the rows in a worksheet. 

  1. In the open Excel document navigate to the column where the row titles are located and place the cell pointer at the top of the column of row titles.
  2. Press CONTROL+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW to highlight all the row titles.
  3. Press CONTROL+F3 to open the name range dialogue.
  4. Then press ALT+N to create a new named range.
  5. At the prompt enter the text:  RowTitle
  6. Then press TAB to reach the OK button and press SPACEBAR.
  7. Then TAB to Close button and press ENTER to complete the name range definition.



Note
If the worksheet has column and row titles that intersect with one another you can move the cell pointer to the point where they intersect and enter Title for the range.

Method 2 - Define row and column headers with JAWS

Using this method you can only use one column or row definition for an Excel document.


Column titles

  1. With an Excel document open navigate to the row to where column titles are and press SHIFT+SPACE to highlight the row of column titles to be spoken by JAWS.
  2. Then press ALT+CONTROL+INSERT+C to define the row for column titles. This will allow column titles to be read as you navigate across the worksheet data.

Row titles

  1. With the Excel document open position the cell pointer at the column to spoken as row titles and press CONTROL+SPACE to highlight the column
  2. Now press ALT+CONTROL+JAWSKEY+R to define the row titles column. This will allow JAWS to speak the row when navigating up/down the worksheet data.


Note
You can also press INSERT+V to use Quick Settings to define row and column titles.

Method 3 - Use layered hotkeys

For those who wish to read the row/column header information these keystrokes may help. Each keystroke must pre preceded by JAWSKey+SPACEBAR then execute the hotkey below for the relevant option:

Read first cell in current column. ALT+1
Read second cell in current column. ALT+2
Read third cell in current column. ALT+3
Read fourth cell in current column. ALT+4
Read first cell in current row. CTRL+1
Read second cell in current row. CTRL+2
Read third cell in current row. CTRL+3
Read fourth cell in current row. CTRL+4


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