NVDA Reporting Keyboard Shortcut to Split Cells in Table Layout Ribbon Incorrectly

[britechguy]

Steps to reproduce:

NOTE: This behavior is NOT exclusive to NVDA. JAWS is doing it too. I suspect this is a bug in what Microsoft Word 365 is exposing to the screen reader to read, but I wanted to put the issue officially on record so it could be pursued with Microsoft if needed.

1. Open any MS-Word document that contains a table.
2. Select a single cell or several cells.
3. Hit Alt to throw focus to the ribbon tabs and begin right arrowing. The context specific Table Design and Layout tabs appear to the right of the Help tab only when a table has focus in the document.
4. Right arrow over to the Help tab, then continue right arrowing (2 times total) to the Table Design tab followed by the Layout tab.

Actual behavior:

NVDA Reads the following:
Help tab selected Alt, Y 12 of 14
Table Tools grouping
Table Design tab selected Alt, Y , J T 13 of 14
Layout tab selected Alt, Y , J L 14 of 14

Expected behavior:

NVDA (or any screen reader should read)
Help tab selected Alt, Y 12 of 14
Table Tools grouping
Table Design tab selected Alt , J T 13 of 14
Layout tab selected Alt , J L 14 of 14

The inclusion of the Y in the keyboard shortcut sequence as its currently reported is wrong and misleading. If you start the command sequence with ALT + Y, none of what follows can be executed because you are already in the Help Ribbon.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

NVDA 2024.3 beta4

Windows version:

Windows 11 v23H2

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

Word 365

Other information about your system:

LG Gram 16, i5 12th Gen, 16GB RAM

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.

No

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

Did not attempt since JAWS does the same thing.

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

Did not attempt since JAWS does the same thing.

[seanbudd]

This needs to be reported to Microsoft

[CyrilleB79]

Narrator reports the same shortcut.

[douggeoffray]

This is definitely a Word bug. I'll get it reported to the Word team.

[britechguy]

This is definitely a Word bug. I'll get it reported to the Word team.

Which I appreciate. I reported this through Word's built-in feedback mechanism, too, but it counts for more when it comes from the development arm of any company that maintains a screen reader.