w:tblDescription (Table Description)

Provides a longer accessible description of a table's content and purpose, supplementing the short caption in w:tblCaption.

Parent elements

w:tblPr

Description

w:tblDescription stores a plain-text description of a table’s content for accessibility purposes. It is the long-form counterpart to w:tblCaption, providing a more detailed explanation of the table’s data and structure.

It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.4.48.

Like w:tblCaption, w:tblDescription does not render visually.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`xsd:string`	Any string	Description text for the table.

Examples

<w:tblPr>
  <w:tblCaption w:val="Revenue summary"/>
  <w:tblDescription w:val="Four columns: Region, Q1, Q2, and Q3 revenue in thousands of dollars."/>
</w:tblPr>

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

var tblPr = new TableProperties(
    new TableCaption { Val = "Revenue summary" },
    new TableDescription
    {
        Val = "Four columns: Region, Q1, Q2, and Q3 revenue in thousands of dollars."
    }
);

Notes

The ECMA-376 standard maps w:tblCaption → HTML <caption> and w:tblDescription → <table summary> for accessibility export.
Both elements should be present for accessible document generation.