Cross references in Word not treated as links by NVDA

[Qchristensen]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Microsoft Word
2. Insert a heading (control+alt+1)
3. On a separate line, create a cross-link to it: alt+s, r, f, then down arrow to heading, press enter to insert the cross link then escape to close the dialog.
4. Press NVDA+space to put NVDA in browse mode
5. Press NVDA+f7 to open the elements list. Look for the link.

Actual behavior:

No link is detected. The cross reference DOES work as a link, but is not recognised as one by NVDA.

Expected behavior:

Cross references should be treated as links. This is a regression - it was initially included in 2016.4 with PR #6242. I suspect it has regressed since moving to UIA for Word?

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA version:

2023.1 installed

Windows version:

Windows 11 (64-bit) Version: 22H2, Build: 22621.1702

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

Office 365 (64-bit) Version: 16.0.16327.20248

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

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

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

[XLTechie]

@Qchristensen can you check the first ("bad") table of contents in 14956example1.docx from issue #14956?

In this document, at least in Word 2019, the cross references are not spoken as links (which I assume is true in your example as well, although it isn't stated), but additionally they can not be interacted with as links in browse mode, which may be contrary to your results. Unless you are using a mouse, when you say:

The cross reference DOES work as a link, but is not recognised as one by NVDA.

[Adriani90]

Probably related to or even duplicate of #5896 and #14956.