Word 365: Table alt text only read if UIA set to "Only when necessary"

[Qchristensen]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a blank document in Word
2. Insert a table
3. Open "Table properties" (Context menu key to open the applications menu then "R" twice, then enter)
4. Press CONTROL+SHIFT+TAB to move to the last tab, "Alt text"
5. Tab to title and add some text
6. Tab to Description and add some text
7. Tab to OK and press enter.
8. Navigate out of the table, then back into it.

Actual behavior:

With UIA set to "Only when necessary" (with a recent version of NVDA / Office / Windows), NVDA reports the title text and "Has description" when focus moves onto the table.

With UIA set to anything else, no title or description information is read.

Expected behavior:

The title at least should be read regardless of the UIA setting.

There is no current way to read the long description aside from allocating a gesture to an unallocated command. A separate issue #16184 has been raised for this aspect.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA version:

NVDA 2024.1 Installed

Windows version:

Windows 11 (64-bit) Version: 23H2, Build: 22631.3155

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

Office 365 (64-bit) Version: 16.0.17231.20170

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?