Excel Accessibility Tips

General tips:
Do not use blank cells for formatting purposes. Its better to densely pack the data in the workbook and then use Excels native formatting techniques. Avoid the use of white space with lots of blank cells or blank rows and columns. Use row and column headers extensively and avoid ambiguity within these headers. Make them clear and selfexplanatory.

Using descriptive text.

A good description can make a workbook much easier to use for a speech user. Telling someone that there are two or three regions in the worksheet and the region names will make it easier for a person to navigate to them. Describing what the row headers and column headers for a particular region represent will go a long way towards making the worksheet easier to use. Its OK to give as much information as you want in an introduction to a workbook or spreadsheet. In fact, its better to have more than less. Use comments within worksheets liberally. Also be sure to mention if more than one worksheet is used in a given workbook, as speech users may tend to overlook the additional worksheets.

Naming and using regions.

Using regions can make it much easier to move from spot to spot in a worksheet. See the Restaurant Supply worksheet for example of multiple regions. Press the Go To keystroke for Excel (CTRL+G, or F5). Tab to the list of defined regions and press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through this list. Press ENTER on any give region name and move to that region. Notice that the region is then highlighted. In the time sheet form (time sheet.xls), move to cell B4 and name a region begin date to make it easier to move to that spot. Press the following keystrokes: ALT+I, N (name), D (define) Type a name that is descriptive. You cannot use spaces in a region name, so use underscores for that purpose. Create a region in our Time Sheet that is called Information consisting of the range of cells in the row for Type Other Hrs.

Setting up and using row and column headers.

Use row and column headers that have meaningful names when you create your spreadsheet. In the example spreadsheet Restaurant Supply Sample Spreadsheet.xls move your focus to cell A2, the intersection of the row headers and column headers for the range named Quantities Used. Open the JAWS Verbosity list, INSERT+V.

Excel Accessibility Tips Last revised 1/15/04

If there are multiple regions on the worksheet that you would like to have row and column headers defined for, choose Regions-single in the verbosity list and press SPACEBAR on this item to change it to say Regions-multiple. Move to the item Set Column Titles to Row Range-undefined and press SPACEBAR. The row you are in now holds titles for the columns beneath them. Move to the item Set Row Titles to Column Range-undefined and press SPACEBAR. The column you are in now holds the titles for the rows to the right of it. Press ENTER to close the JAWS Verbosity list. You will hear JAWS say Application Settings Saved, Workbook Settings Saved. This indicates that there has now been a JSI file created with the same name of this workbook. See the section below on how to use JSI files and where they are located. In our time sheet, define row and column headings as follows: Column headers should be the day of the week AND the date. Row headers should be Vacation, Sick time, Project numbers, etc.

Setting up and using monitored cells.

Monitored cells are useful for getting information from different places in a spreadsheet without having to actually navigate there. Totals and subtotals are good examples. Set up a monitored cell for the grand total number of hours used in our time sheet, cell L26. Move to cell L26.
Excel Accessibility Tips Last revised 1/15/04

Open the JAWS verbosity list (INSERT+V). Move to the item define monitor cells and press SPACEBAR. This defines the first monitored cell on the worksheet as cell L26. Press ENTER to close the JAWS verbosity list. You will hear JAWS say Application settings saved, Workbook settings saved. This indicates that a JSI file has been created with the same name as the workbook.

JAWS Script Initialization (JSI) Files

In some cases when working with JAWS you will hear application settings saved. In other cases you will hear that and also workbook settings saved. This indicates that a JSI file has been created. JSI files are saved in the following folder: C:\JAWSxxx\SETTINGS\ENU where xxx represents the JAWS version number. JSI files will be named first after the application that they were created for, followed by the name of the file, the extension of that file, and finally, a JSI extension. For example, the JSI file for the workbook Restaurant Supply Sample Spreadsheet.xls is: excel_Restaurant Supply Sample Spreadsheet.xls.jsi and the JSI file for Time Sheet.xls is: excel_Time Sheet.xls.jsi. When sending a workbook to employees or users of JAWS you can also send them the associated JSI file with instructions to copy the JSI file into their JAWS\SETTINGS\ENU folder. This way they will not have to spend valuable time exploring the workbook and setting up information on their own. Of course, along with the JSI file some instructions on how the workbook is laid out will also be helpful.
Excel Accessibility Tips Last revised 1/15/04

Keystrokes
Select Hyperlink Column Total Row Total Column Title Row Title List Comments Read Cell Comment Read Monitor Cell Select Objects Select Hyperlinks CTRL+SHIFT+H INSERT+NUMPAD ENTER INSERT+DELETE ALT+SHIFT+C ALT+SHIFT+R CTRL+SHIFT+APOSTROPHE ALT+SHIFT+APOSTROPHE ALT+SHIFT+1-0 CTRL+SHIFT+O CTRL+SHIFT+H

Excel Accessibility Tips Last revised 1/15/04