Custom Summary - Excel 2007 - JAWS V15

Creating and Using a JAWS Custom Summary in Excel 2007

As promised, I am still in my Excel and JAWS zone and today I'd like to talk a little bit about creating a JAWS custom summary for a particular worksheet. What is a custom summary? Well, it's a way of creating a short list of particular pieces of relevant information you need to access and read. For example, imagine a massive spreadsheet full of data where you only need to check a handful of the cells. The manual approach here will have you going to each cell to check out the values, but if you create a custom summary containing those specific cells then you can read that in one go instead. With the right material this can save you a significant amount of time.

To begin with though I need some data to work with so I have created the following table in Excel, although you can open up an existing worksheet and use that if you wish.

Example Data for the Custom Summary Exercise

Items	January	February	March
Pens	185	175	180
Crayons	155	135	185
Erasers	85	90	65
Pencils	205	195	210
Pencils	205	195	210
Rulers	45	50	30
Sharpeners	35	40	25
Cases	20	25	15

Now that we have some data, let's get to grips with creating a custom summary.

Creating a JAWS Custom Summary in Excel 2007

The JAWS Custom Summary consists of a bunch of custom labelled items read out in order. In this example, I am going to create a custom summary containing the grand totals for each of the three months in my table of data. After all, I'm interested only in the totals most of the time, not so much interested in each value that makes the total figures.

1. To begin with, locate the first cell to be marked. Remember that, by default, the order in which you label the cells is the order they are spoken.
2. In my case the first total is in cell B9 so, when I have focus on the relevant cell, I use the keystroke of INSERT CONTROL TAB to launch the Custom Label dialog box for the current worksheet.

3. With the Custom Label dialog box, press the TAB key to move to the Add button and press SPACEBAR to activate.
4. A small Add dialog box will launch, so type in an appropriate name as your custom label. In my own example, I have typed January Total as that seems the shortest and most descriptive name that will make sense when JAWS reads the summary back. After confirming this with the OK button, focus moves back to the Custom Label dialog box.
5. Now that you have at least one custom label set up, many of the button options that may have been previously unavailable should now be available. So, explore this dialog box again by pressing the TAB key to move through the options. When you have done this, TAB to the OK button and press SPACEBAR to confirm.
6. Now you need to repeat the whole process for the next cell you require in your summary. In my own example, I refocus on cell C9 in my spreadsheet - the total cell for February - and once more press INSERT CONTROL TAB to relaunch my Custom Summary for Sheet 1 dialog box. As before, I activate the Add dialog box via the Add button and this time type in the name February Total. After this, I continue to repeat the process until all of the cells are part of the Custom Label list.
7. When you have added all of the required cells, check your list of custom labels. Remember the order of the items in the list is the order in which JAWS reads them in the custom summary. If you feel that you need to reorder some of the labels, then select the particular item in the list and use the Move Up (ALT U) and the Move Down (ALT D) buttons and/or hotkeys. Keep pressing these options as necessary until the selected custom label is in the correct position in the overall list.
8. When you have checked and reordered your list (if necessary) you are pretty much done. TAB to the OK button for the final time and press the SPACEBAR to confirm.
9. A quick check to make sure your custom list is ready to rock can be done using the JAWS context help system, press INSERT F1 for a context help summary when you are back in your worksheet - you should hear a mention near the top confirming that the current worksheet has a custom summary. If you hear this, you're done!

Reading a JAWS Custom Summary in Excel 2007

When you have created your summary it is now available at any time for you to read. There are two main methods for reading the summary and I'll cover both now:

Using the Manager List

1. Press INSERT F2 to launch the list of JAWS Managers.
2. ARROW DOWN or press letter V to focus on the View Custom Summary option and press ENTER.
3. The custom summary will now open in the virtual viewer and JAWS will begin to read automatically - use the ARROW KEYS as normal to control the speech. Notice how links are included in the summary, these allow you to move directly to that specific cell in the spreadsheet if necessary.
4. When you have finished reading the summary, press the ESCAPE key to close the virtual viewer.

Using a Direct Keystroke

1. An alternative to the above route is to use the direct keystroke - and what a keystroke it is! You can launch the custom summary window directly using INSERT CONTROL SHIFT and TAB.

And there we go! Creating a custom summary is a useful thing to do if you often have to make sense of the same big worksheets over and over again. If you create a summary once then it will always point to those specific cell locations, so instead of going to each of those cells in the sheet - with all the key presses to accompany that going back and forth - you can just create a summary and read that in one go. Even if the values change that's no problem because the summary works dynamically, it's based on the cell references not the cell values at the time you create the label.

To wrap up this particular post, I have created a small table containing the hotkeys for each of the functions in the main Custom Label dialog box. All that is left for you is to carry on having fun experimenting with custom summaries in Excel!

Hotkeys for Functions in the Custom Label Dialog Box

Button Label	Keystroke	Function
Add	ALT A	Launches the Name dialog box to create a new custom label.
Change Name	ALT C	Also launches the Name dialog box, enabling you to change the label for the currently selected label in your list.
Move Up	ALT U	Moves the currently selected label in the list up one space.
Move Down	ALT D	Moves the currently selected label in the list down one space.
Remove	ALT R	Removes the currently selected custom label in the list.
Remove All	ALT L	Removes all of the custom labels in the list.