How rich-text-format fields work with accessibility

The rich-text-format (RTF) component design allows you to define a character field that supports displaying and editing information within a rich text environment. This environment supports various fonts, colors, and textual styles such as bold, italic, and underline. The environment also allows images and tables to be displayed within the boundaries of the character field.

The RTF field takes into account normal, No Vision, and Low Vision users. As a No Vision or Low Vision, you can view the RTF field in a character field or a character pop-up editor only, but the RTF features are disabled, and the data can be viewed in a plain text format only. The icon displayed next to the character field for No Vision and Low Vision users is different from the icon displayed for normal users.

A normal user can edit the RTF field by clicking on the In Place Editor or the RTF Popup Editor. As a No Vision or Low Vision user, you can edit content only in the character pop-up editor, and the editing behaves like a character field. Any editing that you do in the RTF Popup Editor overwrites the existing RTF data and causes the formatting to be lost if you save the form.

JAWS indicates the end of an RTF field by saying, "End of Character Rich Text Field with Expand Frame."

Related topics

Section-508-guidelines-for-application-design-and-testing

No-Vision-support-for-AR-System-features

Low-Vision-users-and-AR-System-clients

Lists in RTF fields

When JAWS encounters:

  • A list in the RTF field, it spells out the number of items in the list, and it announces the type of the list, ordered or unordered.
  • A bulleted list, it says, "list of X items," with X being the number of items in the list. JAWS says "bullet" before reading each item in the list.
  • A numbered list, it says, "list of X items," with X being the number of items in the list. JAWS reads the number preceding each item followed by the text of that item.
  • A nested list, JAWS announces the nesting level of each list.

As a No Vision user, to access or navigate through anchor links in an RTF field, press the Tab key. After JAWS reads the link, you can use these key sequences:

  • To open a link, press Enter to open the link.
  • To force the link to open in a new window, press Shift+Enter.
  • To move through visited links on the page, press V for the next link, and Shift+V for the prior link.
  • To move through unvisited links on the page, press U for the next link, and Shift+U for the prior link.

As a No Vision or Low Vision user, you can use skip links to skip an RTF field. JAWS reads the skip link as "Skip past RTF content link."

In Forms Mode, after you tab to the RTF field and focus on the skip link, press Enter to skip the RTF field. JAWS reads the content of the RTF field when the user tabs on the field.

In Virtual PC Cursor Mode, if you press the Up or Down arrow key after tabbing from the skip link, JAWS reads the title of the RTF field as "Character Rich Text field with Expand Frame." To stay local and navigate through the content of the RTF field, press the Up or Down arrow key. Then, you can control what you want to read.

Tables in RTF fields

Tables in RTF fields are HTML tables and are accessible to No Vision and Low Vision users. Use the following key sequences to work with tables:

Key sequence

Action

T

Move to the next table.

Ctrl+Windows key+J

Directly access data inside a cell within the current table. JAWS then prompts you to enter the column and row number that you want to access. Press Enter to move to that cell.

Alt+Ctrl+ Num Pad 5

Have JAWS read information about the current table cell. JAWS reads the row and column position, reads the current row and column headers, and reads the contents of the cell.

Insert+Shift+ Home

Have JAWS read from the beginning of the row to the current cell.

Insert+Shift+ Page Up

Have JAWS read from the current cell to the end of the row.

Insert+Shift+End

Have JAWS read from the top of the column to the current cell

Insert+Shift+ Page Down

Have JAWS read from the current cell to the bottom of the column.

Insert+Shift+ Num Pad 5

Have JAWS read the current column.

Alt+Ctrl+ Right arrow

Move to the next cell in the same row. JAWS reads the column header and the data in the cell and announces the column number.

Alt+Ctrl+Left arrow

Move to the prior cell in the same row. JAWS reads the column header and the data in the cell and announces the column number.

Alt+Ctrl+Down arrow

Move to the next cell in a column. JAWS reads the row header and the data in the cell and announces the row number.

Alt+Ctrl+Up arrow

Move to the prior cell in a column. JAWS reads the row header and the data in the cell and announces the row number.

Windows Key+Down arrow

Move to a new row. JAWS states the number of columns in the new row.

Windows Key+Up arrow

Move to a new row. JAWS states the number of columns in the new row.

Alt+Ctrl+Home

Move to the first cell in the table. JAWS reads the contents of the cell, announces the row and column number, and then reads the row and column headers.

Alt+Ctrl+End

Move to the last cell in the table. JAWS reads the contents of the cell, announces the row and column number, and then reads the row and column headers.

F8

Select an entire table.

When you exit a table, JAWS reads, "End of table."


 

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