Data tables aren't reported as tables in Microsoft Outlook with UIA

[LeonarddeR]

Known issue from #12820 (comment)

@michaelDCurran wrote:

In the UI automation implementation exposed by MS Word document controls, it is impossible to identify the difference between a data table and a layout table. Thus, NVDa reports all layout tables when reading, which is extremely annoying, as the majority of HTML emails use many nested layout tables.
Tables are now classed as layout tables in MS Word document controls if the app is Outlook, and the table is read-only (Outlook is in message reading view).
Being marked as a layout table means that by default the table will not be reported, however the user can still turn on the Include Layout Tables option in NVDA's browse mode settings temporarily if there is a genuine data table they need to have reported.

[LeonarddeR]

Personally, I consider this change really annoying as I pretty often am in the position of reading tables in e-mails.

[bramd]

+1, I agree the presenting of all tables is just annoying in email, but having to turn on layout table reporting to read a table makes absolutely no sense from an end-user perspective.

[LeonarddeR]

It is not clear to me why it has been decided in #12820 (comment) not to do the column/row number count approach. I think it is safe to say that we're dealing with a layout table if either column or row count is 1.

[michaelDCurran]

As long as we accept that not all layout tables will be found with the column number approach I'm happy to do it. I still saw a few layout tables that had both more than one column and more than one row. I have again brought this issue up with Microsoft, so let's hope they also work on a solution on their side.

[michaelDCurran]

@LeonarddeR Do you still wish to leave this issue open, or are you happy to close as we now detect 1x1 tables as layout tables?

[LeonarddeR]

As Microsoft is actively adding stuff to UIA in Office, may be we can request them to add their own data table detection? IN that case, we can leave this open to track the progress. We can close otherwise.