Reading Word and Pages documents and headings

By Lincoln, 15 June, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I am coming to VoiceOver with more knowledge with JAWS. When reading a Word document and I come to a heading, I notice VoiceOver doesn't announce that it's a heading or a heading level. I found this surprising. JAWS would say that the text is a heading and it's level. When I use the rotor VO + U , I the headings are listed but it doesn't have the heading levels.

When I try with Pages, reading the document will say the heading level in the document, but the rotor also doesn't list the heading level. I'm not sure if it could be bugs, VoiceOver settings, or issues with my VoiceOver knowledge. any advice?

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Comments

By Bruce Harrell on Monday, June 27, 2022 - 20:26

Have you tried creating an activity for the problem apps and changing their activity's verbosity settings to correct the problem automatically?

By Kevin Shaw on Monday, June 27, 2022 - 20:26

Hi, In Pages, VoiceOver reads the style name which can be the heading and level, the word "heading" or a custom style name. For example, heading names can be the following:

  • Heading 1
  • Heading 2
  • Heading 3

Alternatively, they can have these style names:

  • Main Heading
  • chapter heading
  • Section heading

Each of these can conform to a semantic heading level (1 to 6), but be named different things based on user preference.

If you're new to the Mac and Pages, I've created several guides you can take a look at on the Guides page of AppleVis. Good luck.

By Lincoln on Monday, June 27, 2022 - 20:26

My verbosity settings are already on high so I don't think an activity would change much. Pages has this rotor problem too.

By Lincoln on Monday, June 27, 2022 - 20:26

Microsoft was able to reproduce the bug I reported and have forwarded it to their engineering team.