On 2008-03-28, Dave Rado <dave.rado@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
[...]
>> I don't know much about screen readers but someone here I think once
>> pointed out that his screen reader just reads what's actually
>> _displayed_ in the browser window-- in other words it grabs text off the
>> page like a clipboard copy operation, and doesn't look at the HTML
>> source at all.
>
> Okay thanks, that's a relief to know. Given this, it's odd, though,
> that screen reader accessibility is often given in tutorials as a
> primary reason not to use tables for layout.

Well you can't believe everything you read in tutorials

There may be other screen readers that do use the HTML, or it may just
be one of those myths that gets around.

In principle you'd think a screen reader _should_ read the HTML, not the
screen. But, they may be designed to read text off any application, not
just a browser, and since lot of websites don't follow accessiblity
guidelines it may also work better in practice just to read the screen.