[gui-talk] viewing complex messages with outlook

Tue Oct 25 02:56:33 UTC 2011

Good evening Louis,

Your are not alone in facing this challenge. Microsoft and numerous others try to make their document, spreadsheet, presentation, and other media development / presentation products. I will use Adobe Acrobat Portable Document File formats as an example. The concept is the same with most modern mail programs, word processors, … Adobe offers a special tag called reading order. Such that when there are embedded tables the author can direct the Acrobat Reader software to read the content in the proper order. Although Microsoft has tried to create a comparable portable document format called XPS. It is magnitudes apart from what Adobe has created over the past couple of decades. 

My only initial suggestion is to try to get the author to provide an Adobe PDF version of the document that you are trying to read. Embedded content that uses complex tagging and tables is another matter altogether. 

What really needs to be done is to get the standards architects to design their standards to be accessible. I believe HTML 5 is starting to move in the right direction, but not all programs (email clients, browsers, ...) accurately parse the latest standards.  

We can choose to create documents that are plain text or tagged for readability. The trick will be how to pass legislation that will mandate such compliance. Our representatives seem to mostly say that they can't tell manufacturers / developers how to create or build their products. At least this is my limited perspective as an author and a reader.

I know this does not answer your question directly; however, I hope it explains what is going on under the hood.

I have often converted such email attachments to plain text files. This will produce some ugly output, but often this is the only way to get the gist of the article. If you critically need this data for business, educational, or personal reasons you may have to resort to having someone making these documents accessible. 

I struggle with this every day. I have to read lots of highly technical computer and mathematics documents. I get very frustrated trying to get the information I need from these documents. A big percentage are email attachments I have to process for business purposes, as well as many personal special interests. 

On Oct 24, 2011, at 6:01 PM, Louis Maher wrote:

> You can save it as an html file.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Louis Maher
> 713-444-7838
> ljmaher at swbell.net
> http://www.nfbtx.org/houston.htm
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Humberto Avila
> Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 10:34 PM
> To: ljmaher at swbell.net; 'Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI
> Talk Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] viewing complex messages with outlook
> 
> Can you save the message as an htm file for use with my browser?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Louis Maher
> Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 7:28 PM
> To: 'Discussion of the Graphical User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] viewing complex messages with outlook
> 
> Hello Humberto,
> 
> One awful solution is to save the message as a txt file and read it that
> way.  I have experienced the same issue.
> 
> 
> Regards
> Louis Maher
> 713-444-7838
> ljmaher at swbell.net
> http://www.nfbtx.org/houston.htm
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Humberto Avila
> Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 7:03 PM
> To: gui-talk at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [gui-talk] viewing complex messages with outlook
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> 
> 
> I am very frustrated with Microsoft office outlook 2010 and windows 7. I
> cannot seem to find a way for me to read email messages such as newsletters
> that contain heavy html such as tables, links, headings, and graphics. 
> 
> When I open a message, and I tab to read it with the reading pane, or enter
> to open, I get the warning message from JAWS: 
> 
> "warning, for best results for reading this message, press Alt+H, then the
> letter A, then letter V to read the message in your browser."
> 
> Also, outlook has prompted me when opening one of these email messages: "If
> there are problems displaying this message, click here to read it in your
> browser."
> 
> 
> 
> Let me tell you: first, I have spent my life navigating the entire ribbons
> and there is no option in this application that says, or is related to,
> viewing the email in my web browser. Second, I can't also find a way to get
> to the notification bar that outlook displays when there are messages with
> pictures, or to prompt me to right click to download images, ETC. of course.
> I was trying to click on the notification to display the message in my
> browser, but I don't have any luck. I either have to use the JAWS cursor to
> find the notification or go into mazes of junk trying to read the message
> right from within the "read-only" edit box that outlook displays. 
> 
> My questions are:
> 
> 
> 
> 1.       How do I get to the outlook notification bar quicker? Is there a
> shortcut key for this?
> 
> 2.      Is there a way in outlook that I can make it to view the message
> into Internet explorer, for instance, to read those kinds of email messages?
> Is there a hot key for that also? Is JAWS perhaps lying about the given
> shortcut key since it does not work at all?
> 
> 
> 
> Any answers are welcome. And as I said earlier, I'm starting to hate office
> outlook 2010. If this continues, I'm going to have to roll back to office
> 2003 regardless of whether I am told that I need to update or not! (grim).
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Humberto
> 
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