In MS Word, consecutive cross-reference links appear to be a single link, and if they span lines, the middle lines aren't announced as links

[XLTechie]

Steps to reproduce:

There are likely easier ways to cause this, but this is the STR that first prompted me to notice the problem.

Note, that UIA must be set to "Only when necessary" to prompt this behavior. There is an even worse bug for any other UIA setting.

1. I created a Word document with four headings as follow, with some test text and a blank line below each (see example doc in future comment):

Bad TOC:
First
Second
Third

2. I went up until I was under "Bad TOC:".
3. I pressed Alt+Q, and typed "reference", then chose the "Insert cross reference" option from the list of actions which were suggested.
4. I set the first combobox to "heading", the second to "Heading text", and left "insert as hyperlink" checked.
5. In "For which heading", I selected "first", then pressed the "insert" button. Without closing the dialog, I swapped back to the document, pressed end then enter to break the line, then repeated by adding cross-references to "second" and "third".

I now had three cross references under "Bad TOC:" containing:

First
Second
Third

Actual behavior:

When reading the document in either Browse or Focus modes, I am presented with the following speech:

Heading level 1  Bad TOC:
Link  First
Second
Third
Out of link

Expected behavior:

When reading the document starting at the first line, I would expect something more similar to the following:

Heading level 1  Bad TOC:
Link  First
Link Second
Link Third
Out of link

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Doesn't matter, but installed.

NVDA version:

Alpha 2023.2.0.28231

Windows version:

10 Home 22H2
11 Home 23H3

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

MS Word 2019 (2304 Build 16.0.16327.20200)

Other information about your system:

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.

2024.1RC1

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

Yes

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

Yes

[seanbudd]

If you can, it would be helpful to have an example doc file uploaded, thanks

[Adriani90]

@XLTechie do you mean first, second and third all these three lines together reference to the heading? Or does each of the lines separately reference to the heading?
If the former, then I think this is intended behavior. First, second and third are in a single link which references to the heading. If the three lines are in fact three different links, then I see your point.

[XLTechie]

@Adriani90 If I correctly understand your question, it is the second issue. They each reference a separate heading, so are not the same link. But NVDA sees them as a single link spread across three lines. I have uploaded a sample doc in the next comment, and also improved the clarity of the issue title and first comment.

[XLTechie]

Here is a sample document, with both normal and reference based tables of contents.

I have noticed something else: this behaves differently based on the UIA setting:

• With UIA set to "where suitable", or set to "always": the table of contents generated with references (original STR), does not speak as linked at all. It also doesn't work as linked in browse mode. However the normal TOC works and indicates correctly. This is partially covered in bug Cross references in Word not treated as links by NVDA #14957.
• With UIA set to "only when necessary": both tables of contents behave as in the STR--that is: only the first line indicates as being a link, but on leaving the last line, "out of link" is spoken. This indicates that they are all one link, even though they are three links to separate headings.

CC @seanbudd as you asked for the sample doc.

[Adriani90]

Probably related to #14957 and #5896.