Cycling through tables : header bug - MSWord

[Transcripteur]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Tick Tables in NVDA Properties Document Formatting Table information and
2. Choose "Rows and columns" in Headers menu in NVDA Properties Document Formatting Table information
3. Download a file, which got a 2 ready-made tables to test the bug, at this adress: Table Header bug
4. Open it in MSWord
5. Cycle through the 2 tables using only ctrl+Down Arrow.

Actual behavior:

ctrl+down arrow
table with 4 rows and 5 columns level 1 City

ctrl+down arrow
Country

ctrl+down arrow
Hour

ctrl+down arrow
Date

ctrl+down arrow
Watch

ctrl+down arrow
blank
ctrl+down arrow
City Honolulu

ctrl+down arrow
Country Hawaii

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 03h00

ctrl+down arrow
Date 27

ctrl+down arrow
Watch graphic
ctrl+down arrow
Date
ctrl+down arrow
City New York

ctrl+down arrow
Country United-States

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 09h00

ctrl+down arrow
Date 27

ctrl+down arrow
Watch graphic
ctrl+down arrow
Date
ctrl+down arrow
City London

ctrl+down arrow
Country England

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 14h00

ctrl+down arrow
Date 27

ctrl+down arrow
Watch graphic
ctrl+down arrow
Date
ctrl+down arrow
out of table blank

Explanation

In MSWord, using ctrl+Down Arrow to navigate, if a table contain more than 3 columns, the header of the 4th column is said after the last cell of a row instead of saying "blank".

Expected behavior:

table with 4 rows and 3 columns level 1 City

ctrl+down arrow
Country

ctrl+down arrow
Hour

ctrl+down arrow
blank
ctrl+down arrow
City Honolulu

ctrl+down arrow
Country Hawaii

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 03h00

ctrl+down arrow
blank
ctrl+down arrow
City New York

ctrl+down arrow
Country United-States

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 09h00

ctrl+down arrow
blank
ctrl+down arrow
City London

ctrl+down arrow
Country England

ctrl+down arrow
Hour 14h00

ctrl+down arrow
blank
ctrl+down arrow
out of table blank

Explanation

The second table contain 3 columns, "blank" is said after the last cell of a row.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10885H CPU @ 2.40GHz 2.40 GHz
RAM: 16.0 Go

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

2025.1.2 (2025.1.2.36913)

Windows version:

Edition: Windows 10 Business
Version: 22H2
Build: 19045.5965

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

MS Word Version 2505 (build 18827.20164)

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

Yes. Same behavior on 2024.x.x (installed and portable) and 2025.x.x (portable)

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

Yes. No add-ons at all

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

Yes.

Original Request

This bug was reported on nvda groups Original thread

[CyrilleB79]

Issue reproducible on my end (Word 2021 LTSC).

[Adriani90]

Is this reproducible also when setting UIA for MS Word to „only necessary“ in NVDA advanced settings?

[Transcripteur]

Yes, my UIA settings are „Automatic“ and „only necessary“, which were recommended by Wiris for Mathtype Object to be read.

[CyrilleB79]

@Transcripteur can you set "Use UI Automation to access Microsoft Word document controls" on "Always" and confirm that the header bug issue disappears? (the one with bad header reported in the last+1 column)

Note: when the caret is in a cell of the last column, pressing control+downArrow makes it jump at the end of the same row, out of the table row. You cannot write something there, you can just press enter to insert a new blank row below; there is no header there so none should be reported.

[Transcripteur]

@CyrilleB79 if I set "Use UI Automation to access Microsoft Word document controls" on "Always" headers aren't reported at all (column 1 to las+1)

[CyrilleB79]

On the contrary, on my end, with Word UIA on "Always", I have headers read as expected.

I'd recommend you to open (again!) another issue for UIA always and headers not read because that's still a distinct issue. Thanks!

[Transcripteur]

@CyrilleB79 as you reported in thread 18335 : "You may want to force UIA and see if you prefer this; if you are on Windows 10, you may have maths not reported in Word though." In fact I have a lot of MathType expressions in my documents. It becomes a problem if I have to choose between headers or Maths.. Thank you for your help.

[Transcripteur]

@CyrilleB79 I've restarted my computer and tried again with Word UIA on "Always". Like you said headers are read as expected. No way to read MathType object with this configuration .Turnaround is to use TAB in tables.

[gerald-hartig]

Our focus moving forward is fixing UIA issues.

[CyrilleB79]

@gerald-hartig I acknowledge and understand that your focus is to transition everybody to UIA.

Though, UIA has been enabled by default in NVDA for already 3 years and from what I know, removing the option to choose legacy object model is not planned for the near future. There are still many people using legacy Word object model, by choice, even on Windows 11 and with recent Office versions; these issues are listed in #16600 (cc @Adriani90 ). It seems that at NV Access, you tend to ignore this matter of fact and seem to consider that everybody uses the default option.

As long as there is a an option to use Word object model, could you please consider keeping this issue as well as related ones open, even if not priorized, for trackability? You may tag them with a "Word object model only" and close them the day you remove the option allowing to switch between UIA and legacy object model.

[seanbudd]

Hi @CyrilleB79 - we're conscious of the remaining issues with UIA. Those issues are triaged and should be fixed as a priority, compared to legacy support for the object model. We shouldn't be investing time in fixing issues with the object model. Please remember that forcing the legacy object model is an advanced setting and discouraged.

[CyrilleB79]

@seanbudd please consider my feedback:

Please remember that forcing the legacy object model is an advanced setting and discouraged.

This feedback actually highlights that NV Access deliberately ignores how people actually works with this option. In the real world, many non-expert users have modified this options. Taking this realty into account, that's why I have advocated, without success, to put this option out of Advanced settings. In comparison, even Jaws has such an option. We should first start from the people's need, so see if the option is useful for anybody or not and then decide if it should be part of Advanced options. Instead, you tell me the opposite: "The options is in advanced section, so most people should not use it".

we're conscious of the remaining issues with UIA. Those issues are triaged and should be fixed as a priority, compared to legacy support for the object model. We shouldn't be investing time in fixing issues with the object model.

I understand this and agree not investing time on the legacy interface, so fully agree to put a p5 on these issues. But just closing the issue is bad regarding trackability for an existing option. One may encounter the same bug and open the same issue in the future. So I'd prefer keep the issue open until the option is removed from NVDA; we may indicate in the issue that it needs an external fix that will likely never come, and that it remains open for trackability. This open issue can also weight in te balance when the decision is made to remove the UIA vs legacy WOM option.

Alternatively, if you want to keep such issue closed, at least we can open one meta-issue to list all the closed legacy interface issues.

[Adriani90]

@seanbudd what is the evidence that objectModel is discouraged? Which reason is underlying? ObjectModel works still in very important situations where UIA does not work as expected.
More than that, NVDA is an open source project, and as such the community can still contribute to solve objectModel issues as long as this setting is still available and as long as Microsoft does not discontinue this technology. in fact Microsoft still provides updates to Office products which have effect on objectModel.
I am reopening.
Please, let's remain on a constructive level and allow the community to still contribute where suitable.
If UIA issues are solved, I am the first one who would like to assist you in closing all the objectModel issues as abandoned, believe me.
But it is still a long way to go until that day comes where UIA works as good as objectModel.