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Column selection in word

William
 

Hi all

I have the following problem.

I have a 5x5 table in word.

With the first row as the column title and the rest are the table content. But the first column of the content (first cell of row 2 to first cell of fifth row) apply to the rest of the content.

So i wanna combine the above mentioned 4 cells.

Do you know how to do this using NVDA?

Thanks,
Quentin Christensen
 

Hi William,

If you select the cells you want to merge - ie move to row 2, column 1, then shift+down arrow to select through to row 5 column 1 - you can then press the applications key to open the context menu and choose "Merge" (Press M twice then enter).  That works with a couple of caveats:
- Moving to the cell to the right of the merged cells will, in this case, always move to the topmost cell to the right - ie row 2, column 2.
- If you set headers, NVDA will read that header each time you change rows, even though it's the same for all those merged cells.
- If you set NVDA to use UI Automation (in NVDA's advanced settings), it gets a bit confused about when you are in the table when part of the table is merged like this.  I'll explore it further and write up the issue, but for now, I'd recommend not using UIA in Word for tables.

If you are interested in learning more about tables and Word in general, we have the "Microsoft Word with NVDA" module you might be interested: https://www.nvaccess.org/product/microsoft-word-training-for-nvda-ebook/

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 6:01 PM William <xsuper.sillyx@...> wrote:
Hi all

I have the following problem.

I have a 5x5 table in word.

With the first row as the column title and the rest are the table
content. But the first column of the content (first cell of row 2 to
first cell of fifth row) apply to the rest of the content.

So i wanna combine the above mentioned 4 cells.

Do you know how to do this using NVDA?

Thanks,









--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager
Quentin Christensen
 

Quick follow up.  The UIA issue isn't around merged cells - it's blank cells - it just happens that the table I setup for this had blank cells I tried to navigate through which were next to the merged cells.  Here is the issue for that: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/11043

Reiterating what I noted previously, I'd recommend not using UIA in Word for now when using tables *with blank cells*.  If you're not sure what UIA in Word is, you most likely don't have it set, so you shouldn't need to worry :)

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 6:19 PM Quentin Christensen via groups.io <quentin=nvaccess.org@groups.io> wrote:
Hi William,

If you select the cells you want to merge - ie move to row 2, column 1, then shift+down arrow to select through to row 5 column 1 - you can then press the applications key to open the context menu and choose "Merge" (Press M twice then enter).  That works with a couple of caveats:
- Moving to the cell to the right of the merged cells will, in this case, always move to the topmost cell to the right - ie row 2, column 2.
- If you set headers, NVDA will read that header each time you change rows, even though it's the same for all those merged cells.
- If you set NVDA to use UI Automation (in NVDA's advanced settings), it gets a bit confused about when you are in the table when part of the table is merged like this.  I'll explore it further and write up the issue, but for now, I'd recommend not using UIA in Word for tables.

If you are interested in learning more about tables and Word in general, we have the "Microsoft Word with NVDA" module you might be interested: https://www.nvaccess.org/product/microsoft-word-training-for-nvda-ebook/

Kind regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 6:01 PM William <xsuper.sillyx@...> wrote:
Hi all

I have the following problem.

I have a 5x5 table in word.

With the first row as the column title and the rest are the table
content. But the first column of the content (first cell of row 2 to
first cell of fifth row) apply to the rest of the content.

So i wanna combine the above mentioned 4 cells.

Do you know how to do this using NVDA?

Thanks,









--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager



--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager
Sylwek Piekarski
 

Set the cursor in the first cell of the second row.
Press ALT + SHIFT + PGDN and all cells down will be selected.
Open the context menu and select the merge cells.


W dniu 17.03.2021 o 08:01, William pisze:

Hi all

I have the following problem.

I have a 5x5 table in word.

With the first row as the column title and the rest are the table content. But the first column of the content (first cell of row 2 to first cell of fifth row) apply to the rest of the content.

So i wanna combine the above mentioned 4 cells.

Do you know how to do this using NVDA?

Thanks,
William
 

Thanks, I tested out that it work only if the table is empty.

If it is not empty, when I do so I found that nvda will also speak the cells from the other columns.


Sylwek Piekarski 於 17/3/2021 17:07 寫道:

Set the cursor in the first cell of the second row.
Press ALT + SHIFT + PGDN and all cells down will be selected.
Open the context menu and select the merge cells.


W dniu 17.03.2021 o 08:01, William pisze:
Hi all

I have the following problem.

I have a 5x5 table in word.

With the first row as the column title and the rest are the table content. But the first column of the content (first cell of row 2 to first cell of fifth row) apply to the rest of the content.

So i wanna combine the above mentioned 4 cells.

Do you know how to do this using NVDA?

Thanks,
Yeti
 

Hello Sylwek,

I tested out that it work only if the table is empty.

Yes, it looks like this, but this is an issue of NVDA.

When You copy the marked text by pressing CTRL+C and paste it on another place, You will see it.

At least that was the case with me in word 2019.

Ad Astra

Yeti
William
 

Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell, actually word has not selected them?


Yeti 於 17/3/2021 19:47 寫道:

Hello Sylwek,

I tested out that it work only if the table is empty.
Yes, it looks like this, but this is an issue of NVDA.

When You copy the marked text by pressing CTRL+C and paste it on another place, You will see it.

At least that was the case with me in word 2019.

Ad Astra

Yeti
Sylwek Piekarski
 

Yes, if you do as I wrote, only this part of the table will be selected in your case only three cells in the column.
Keyboard shortcuts for Word to navigate in the table are:
ALT + HOME - First cell in a row
Alt + End - Last cell a row,
Alt + PGUP - First cell in column,
Alt + PGDN - Last cell in column.
When you use these  Shortcut with the SHIFT key, only this area will be select on which the cursor moves.


W dniu 17.03.2021 o 13:03, William pisze:

Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell, actually word has not selected them?


Yeti 於 17/3/2021 19:47 寫道:
Hello Sylwek,

I tested out that it work only if the table is empty.
Yes, it looks like this, but this is an issue of NVDA.

When You copy the marked text by pressing CTRL+C and paste it on another place, You will see it.

At least that was the case with me in word 2019.

Ad Astra

Yeti
Yeti
 

Hello William and All,

Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell,
What I tryed and what happened:
1. I have a Table with 2 columns and about 50 rows. In the second / right column, there are only low numbers, such as 3, 14 or 42.
2. I navigated to the second cell and pressed Alt+Shift+PGDN as proposed.
3. NVDA announced something like "3456 letters marked" and I couldn't believe it.
4. I pressed CTRL+C, opened notepad and pasted with CTRL+V.

There were the about 50 numbers with together about 60 characters and nothing else ...

Ad Astra

Yeti
Quentin Christensen
 

Sorry I forgot about this issue when I initially responded (and I used a blank table so I didn't notice).

This is a known issue.  It had been previously reported but closed, I have written it up here: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/12190

Basically the steps do work, just NVDA does not report the correct selection.  To confirm, if there is content in the cells selected, press control+c to copy it to the clipboard, and NVDA+c to read the contents of the clipboard - it will read the contents of the cells you had actually selected.

Regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 11:30 PM Yeti <jbslists@...> wrote:
Hello William and All,

> Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell,

What I tryed and what happened:
1. I have a Table with 2 columns and about 50 rows. In the second / right column, there are only low numbers, such as 3, 14 or 42.
2. I navigated to the second cell and pressed Alt+Shift+PGDN as proposed.
3. NVDA announced something like "3456 letters marked" and I couldn't believe it.
4. I pressed CTRL+C, opened notepad and pasted with CTRL+V.

There were the about 50 numbers with together about 60 characters and nothing else ...

Ad Astra

Yeti








--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager
William
 

Oh thanks for letting me know these hotkeys.

Sylwek Piekarski 於 17/3/2021 20:14 寫道:

Yes, if you do as I wrote, only this part of the table will be selected in your case only three cells in the column.
Keyboard shortcuts for Word to navigate in the table are:
ALT + HOME - First cell in a row
Alt + End - Last cell a row,
Alt + PGUP - First cell in column,
Alt + PGDN - Last cell in column.
When you use these  Shortcut with the SHIFT key, only this area will be select on which the cursor moves.


W dniu 17.03.2021 o 13:03, William pisze:
Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell, actually word has not selected them?


Yeti 於 17/3/2021 19:47 寫道:
Hello Sylwek,

I tested out that it work only if the table is empty.
Yes, it looks like this, but this is an issue of NVDA.

When You copy the marked text by pressing CTRL+C and paste it on another place, You will see it.

At least that was the case with me in word 2019.

Ad Astra

Yeti
William
 

Thanks for clarifying this.

Quentin Christensen 於 18/3/2021 7:37 寫道:

Sorry I forgot about this issue when I initially responded (and I used a blank table so I didn't notice).

This is a known issue.  It had been previously reported but closed, I have written it up here: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/12190

Basically the steps do work, just NVDA does not report the correct selection.  To confirm, if there is content in the cells selected, press control+c to copy it to the clipboard, and NVDA+c to read the contents of the clipboard - it will read the contents of the cells you had actually selected.

Regards

Quentin.

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 11:30 PM Yeti <jbslists@...> wrote:
Hello William and All,

> Do you mean although nvda speak the content of other cell,

What I tryed and what happened:
1. I have a Table with 2 columns and about 50 rows. In the second / right column, there are only low numbers, such as 3, 14 or 42.
2. I navigated to the second cell and pressed Alt+Shift+PGDN as proposed.
3. NVDA announced something like "3456 letters marked" and I couldn't believe it.
4. I pressed CTRL+C, opened notepad and pasted with CTRL+V.

There were the about 50 numbers with together about 60 characters and nothing else ...

Ad Astra

Yeti








--
Quentin Christensen
Training and Support Manager

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