Re: Captions

Hi Laurie

The "caption" element should be used only to provide a caption for the
table - i.e. it is intended for use with tables presenting genuinely
tabular information, not with tables used only for visual layout.
Similarly with TH - it should only be used to indicate a row or column
heading cell in tables which contain tabular information, and should be
avoided when the table is for layout only.

I'd suggest you simply code all parts of the table as TD, and use CSS to
format the visual presentation of the picture captions.

I'd also suggest that you don't need to repeat the whole caption as the
ALT text for the image - anyone using a text, speech or braille based
application will be presented with exactly the same information twice.
So, for example, the first captioned image on the page could have ALT
text simply "Jess Ritchie's picture on AD-X2 packaging".  The
juxtaposition of the caption text immediately before or after the image
will make the relationship between text and image clear.

Hope that helps...

Regards,
Donna
--
Donna Smillie
RNIB, UK

----- Original Message -----
From: Laurie Davis-Covin <laurie.davis-covin(at)nist.gov>
To: <aware-techniques(at)hwg.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 2:37 PM
Subject: Captions


> Due to Opera 6.04's way of handling spacing, I find I cannot use the
> caption tag in tables where I'm inserting images and their captions.
>
> My tables are summarized --Table for layout of images and captions.
Image
> captions follow.  And, I put the caption within a th tag.
>
> I feel I'm bogged down in this, and that users will be, too. Can this
be
> made more accessible, more clear?
>
> http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/adx2/index.htm
>
>
>
> Laurie Davis-Covin, Web Specialist
> SAIC @ National Institute of
> Standards and Technology
> 100 Bureau Drive
> Admin. Building, Room E 220
> Gaithersburg, MD 20899
> Ph: 301-975-8027
>
>
>
>
>

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