Contents of comments in Word 365 with NVDA+alt+c or elements list.

[Qchristensen]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Word and type some text
2. Press control+alt+m to add a comment
3. Type something, then press control+enter to add it
4. Press escape to return to the text.
5. Locate the comment, and press NVDA+alt+c to read the comment.
6. Press NVDA+spacebar to put NVDA in browse mode
7. Press NVDA+f7 to open the elements list
8. Press alt+a to jump to annotations and read the annotation for the comment.

Actual behavior:

Using both NVDA+alt+c and the elements list, NVDA reads the user who added the comment and the time the comment was added:

Comment: Comment thread started by Quentin Christensen by Quentin Christensen on 08 June 2023, 9:58 AM

But the actual text of the comment is not read.

Expected behavior:

NVDA should first read the text of the comment, and then read any associated info such as who left the comment and when.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA version:

NVDA 2023.1 installed

Windows version:

Windows 11 (64-bit) Version: 22H2, Build: 22621.1778

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?

[michaelDCurran]

Here we are talking about comment threads. I.e. a comment replies. Is it okay to just announce the root comment?

[Qchristensen]

Yes I think just announcing the root comment would be fine. I'm not sure how deep people go with comments - I know when I've used them it's mostly only one level with occasionally a reply. It does announce how many replies there are so that already works, it's just that it is reading out every other bit of information except the comment itself.

[Qchristensen]

For anyone encountering this, the workaround I've found is:

1. Press A or navigate to where the comment is
2. Press alt+r, n to read the next comment
3. Press escape to return to the text.

[Sylduch-Conseil]

When you add a response to a comment, NVDA does not inform you that there is a response.

You can only be informed about that response when you display the list of annotations with insert+F7 and alt+A or when you display the list of comments in the MS ribbon.

NVDA tells you then that there is a response but it only tells you the author's name and the date, not the content of the comment.

At last, in browse mode, typing a to reach next comment does not bring you to the comment response.

[Qchristensen]

This is still present in:

Windows 11 (64-bit) Version: 23H2, Build: 22631.3155
Office 365 (64-bit) Version: 16.0.17328.20068
NVDA 2024.1 Beta 7

And in this setup, the workaround above (alt+r, n) works, and another workaround I've found is if Use UIA in Word is set to "Only when necessary", pressing NVDA+alt+c on a comment reads ONLY the comment.

In every real-world situation where I have encountered comments, I have only ever had to work with one layer of comments (ie not conversations) and only from one user, so this approach would be much more efficient in that case.

As and when we do improve the reading experience, I wonder if we could consider adding a setting somewhere to control how much information is reported for comments? Knowing who made which comments is useful where a whole team is sending around one document with multiple suggestions, but in every case I've used it, it's only ever been one person making comments, so NOT having it read their name and the time they made the comment would be much more preferable (to me) for the most part.