[thelist] Table Summary Attribute

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Thu Jun 14 09:19:17 CDT 2001


> From: Niklaus Haldimann <runciter at rosa.com>
> 
> An accessibility consultant on a project is advising me to use summary
> attributes in table tags to differentiate tables used solely for
> layout purposes from those used to display content. Huh? Having never
> used the summary attribute I can't make much sense of the
> documentation I found via Google
> http://www.google.com/search?q=table+summary+attribute .

go to the people who made the specs, it might help explain it 
better, or not, but at least start there:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#table-summary-info

also, do an in-page search for 'summary' at 
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/tables.html, this should help 
clear it up a bit for you...

> As I understand "summary" is for tables what "alt" is for images. So I
> should use empty summary attributes in tables used for layout purposes
> and try to summarize the content of the other ones, right? What kind

you can probably leave 'summary' (and 'caption') out of layout 
tables altogether... but i'd have to test it to be certain...

> of browser do actually use the summary attribute and how do they use
> it? Like, text-to-speech browsers will read it out before reading the
> content of a table?

again i'd have to test it, since i don't think any of the browsers i've 
used support it, and i can't fire one up now to be certain...

> I am all for accessibility but I am having a hard time trying to
> figure out how browsers can actually benefit from this attribute ...

it isn't for browsers, it's for users... if you are surfing in a non-table-
capable browser (Lynx, screen readers), the concept is that 
'summary' will tell you what the table data is, so even if you can't 
read it, you at least know what it is...





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