<page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/" type="topic" id="howto_tables">
<info>
<link type="guide" xref="index#reading"/>
<link type="next" xref="howto_forms" />
<title type="sort">4. Tables</title>
<desc>
Navigating and setting dynamic headers
</desc>
<credit type="author">
<name>Joanmarie Diggs</name>
<email>joanied@gnome.org</email>
</credit>
<license>
<p>Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0</p>
</license>
</info>
<title>Tables</title>
<p>
<app>Orca</app> provides several features specifically designed to improve
access to tables found in web pages and other documents: configurable cell
versus row reading, <link xref="howto_structural_navigation">Structural
Navigation</link> and Dynamic Headers.
</p>
<section id="cell_row">
<title>Cell Versus Row Reading</title>
<p>
Consider the process of examining the list of messages in your Inbox.
In order to have Orca announce the sender, subject, date, and presence
of attachments you would need <app>Orca</app> to speak the row. On the
other hand, when navigating amongst rows in a spreadsheet, hearing the
full row may not be desired if for no other reason than the sheer number
of cells in each row. Thus in that case, you would want <app>Orca</app>
to only speak the cell with focus. Similar situations occur in document
tables.
</p>
<p>
<app>Orca</app> allows you to customize whether only the cell should be
read, or if the full row should be, for GUI tables, document tables,
and spreadsheets. Because these settings are independent of one another,
you do not have to choose one table reading mode to fit multiple types of
tables.
</p>
<p>
You can set each of <app>Orca</app>'s table reading preferences <app>Orca</app>
wide as well as on an application-by-application basis. How to do each is
described in the guide on <link xref="preferences"><app>Orca</app>'s preferences
dialogs</link>. The settings can be found on the <link xref="preferences_speech">
<gui>Speech</gui> page</link>.
</p>
<p>
Lastly, there is also an <app>Orca</app> command which allows you to toggle
cell versus row reading on the fly for the currently-active table:
<keyseq><key>Orca Modifier</key><key>F11</key></keyseq>.
</p>
</section>
<section id="structural_navigation">
<title>Structural Navigation</title>
<p>
<app>Orca</app>'s <link xref="commands_structural_navigation#tables">table
Structural Navigation commands</link> make it possible for you to quickly
locate tables, jump immediately to a table's first or last cell, and
move to the next cell in any direction.
</p>
<p>
As you navigate amongst and within tables using Structural Navigation,
<app>Orca</app> will announce additional details to help you understand
your position, such as the dimensions of the table you just entered and
the fact that you have reached the edge of the table in the direction you
are moving.
</p>
<p>
In addition, <app>Orca</app> provides configurable
<link xref="preferences_table_navigation">presentation options</link>
which work in conjunction with Structural Navigation and allow you to
control whether or not cell coordinates are presented, multiple cell spans
are indicated, and cell headers are announced.
</p>
<note style="tip">
<title>Don't Forget To Toggle Structural Navigation On!</title>
<p>
Depending on where you are, it may be necessary for you to explicitly
toggle Structural Navigation on before you can use it. To learn more, read
<link xref="howto_structural_navigation#toggling_required">
when toggling Structural Navigation on is required.</link>
</p>
</note>
</section>
<section id="dynamic_headers">
<title>Dynamic Headers</title>
<p>
Many of the tables you will encounter while reading have cells which serve
as the header for a row or a column. Whether or not the creator of that
table correctly marked those cells as headers is hard to say. In many
cases, the text was simply formatted to be larger and/or bold. And even if
the table is correctly marked up, that is no guarantee that the application
or toolkit exposes that text as header information to assistive technologies.
<app>Orca</app>'s Dynamic Header support makes it possible to overcome these
challenges.
</p>
<steps>
<title>Setting Column Headers</title>
<item>
<p>
Move to the row which contains all of the column headers.
</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
Press <keyseq><key>Orca Modifier</key><key>R</key></keyseq> to tell
<app>Orca</app> that the current row is the one with the headers.
</p>
</item>
</steps>
<steps>
<title>Setting Row Headers</title>
<item>
<p>
Move to the column which contains all of the row headers.
</p>
</item>
<item>
<p>
Press <keyseq><key>Orca Modifier</key><key>C</key></keyseq> to tell
<app>Orca</app> that the current column is the one with the headers.
</p>
</item>
</steps>
<p>
Having set either the column headers or the row headers, you should find
that as you navigate amongst the cells, <app>Orca</app> will present each
header that has changed. Or to put it another way, <app>Orca</app> will
not present the column header over and over again as you move up or down
within the current column. Likewise, it will not present the row header
over and over again as you move left or right within the current row.
However, if you change rows and there are row headers, the header
associated with the new row will be presented. And if you change columns
and there are column headers, the header associated with the new column
will be presented.
</p>
<p>
To clear headers, simply double-click the command you used to set them.
Thus double-clicking <keyseq><key>Orca Modifier</key><key>R</key></keyseq>
tells <app>Orca</app> there are no column headers. Double-clicking
<keyseq><key>Orca Modifier</key><key>C</key></keyseq> tells <app>Orca</app>
there are no row headers.
</p>
</section>
</page>