Understanding Document Accessibility by The Chang School, Ryerson University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Imagine that you are standing in front of a closed door. On the other side of that door is a world of information — news, entertainment, job listings, and updates from family and friends. You see other people enter that doorway, but you can’t find a way to enter.
People with disabilities come up against locked doors in the digital world continually. Adapted from Enabling Access Through Web Renewal: Handbook (PDF), Wilfred Laurier University.
This site offers resources to help you create accessible documents. When you structure your documents correctly, you make your content easier for everyone to understand and use. The accessibility improvements that you implement — like adding alt text and using headings — have tangible benefits for users with or without disabilities.
Assistive technologies, such as screen readers, empower people with visual, auditory, or mobility impairments to be productive and purposeful. As content creators, we have a responsibility to add to this culture of inclusivity. By giving others access to content, we leave the door open for opportunities.
The techniques covered in this resource will help you create accessible office documents. We have taken the application-specific instructions developed by the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project and updated it with revised instructions and screenshots, where needed. Featured throughout this resource are “Editor’s note” boxes like the one below.
Editor’s note: When instructions diverge for later versions of an application, we’ve captured the updates in a featured box like this.
Review the techniques in the specific application sections and follow the steps to make your documents more accessible. Due to the nature of this reference document, we encourage you to use the online version of this resource.
Use the table of contents or the list of applications below to find the instructions you need.
Microsoft
Microsoft Word 2013, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft Word for Mac 2011, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft Word 2010
Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac
Microsoft Word 2007
Microsoft Excel 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft Excel for Mac 2008, 2011, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft Excel 2007
Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 2008, 2011, 2016, and 2019
Microsoft PowerPoint 2007
OpenOffice/LibreOffice
OpenOffice Writer and LibreOffice Writer
OpenOffice Calc
OpenOffice Impress
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe InDesign CS6 and CC
Adobe Acrobat 11 Pro and DC
Adobe Acrobat 10 Pro
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro
While we attempt to make all elements of this resource conform with international accessibility guidelines, we must acknowledge a few accessibility issues:
This resource was made possible by funding from the Government of Ontario’s EnAbling Change Program with the goal of providing educational opportunities for Ontarians (and anyone else) to learn about web accessibility.
Additional content about authoring techniques for accessible office documents are courtesy of the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) at OCAD University, who created the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
If you’ve used a sidewalk ramp, eyeglasses, or video subtitles, you’ve used assistive technology which aids with accessibility.
Accessibility, when it comes to digital content, is often compared to a sidewalk ramp or curb cut — it’s a feature that ends up benefitting all people, not just those with mobility issues. As document authors, you need to be aware of the different types of abilities to plan for when creating accessible documents.
Here’s a breakdown of the different barriers and how we can be inclusive:
Your primary task when making accessible documents is to ensure documents are structured correctly so that people assistive technologies can interact with your digital content. In order to do this, follow the techniques detailed in this resource.
The steps taken to ensure the accessibility of the documents that you create are often not laborious. In the end, it often makes the document easier for all to use.
When converting your office documents to PDF for distribution, it’s important to consider if PDF is the best choice. Compared to HTML, for example, PDF documents are harder to use and maintain. PDFs are useful in certain cases, like completing government forms, but be sure to understand the limitations of PDF files.Why GOV.UK Content Should Be Published in HTML and Not PDF - UK Government Digital Service. https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2018/07/16/why-gov-uk-content-should-be-published-in-html-and-not-pdf/.
Here’s a summary of some problems with PDFs:
Before choosing to distribute your content as a PDF, consider your audience and how they will use the content:
We recommend considering HTML instead of or in addition to PDF where appropriate. While PDF accessibility has improved over the years, accessibility support for PDF by authoring tools, viewers and assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) is not as widespread as for HTML documents.
Google Docs lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably, the ability to create complex accessible tables and a built-in accessibility checker.
While there is no accessibility checking feature built into Google Docs, you can install a third-party add-on called Grackle Docs. Grackle is a third-party plug-in that includes an accessibility checker along with other features that enhance accessibility on Google Docs (see Technique 11).
Due to the nature of Google Docs, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like a PDF file.
You should use these techniques when you are using Google Docs to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
Google Docs does not have a default file format as it is a web-based authoring tool. Google Docs offers a number of word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. Files are easily saved as various file formats (see Technique 12).
Editor’s note: Since the content of this page has been heavily updated from the original article (Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google docs: Documents), the usual editor’s notes that flag new content will be omitted. The application-specific steps and screenshots were updated in December 2019.
Google Docs lacks support for some accessibility features, such as table headers that repeat. With this in mind, be cautious of templates available in the Google Docs template gallery and be sure that they comply the techniques discussed here.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
Google Docs’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes a wide variety of templates ranging from blank business letters and memos to blank business cards and schedules. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank. It is possible to create your own templates from scratch in Google Docs. As well, you can edit and modify the existing templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Curb Cuts: Updating templates is also a good opportunity to improve document consistency, copy editing, and branding.
You can share your accessible template, but it may be more useful to share the file as copy that other users can add to their Google Drive.
For more information, see the resources below:
At this time (December 2019), Google Docs does not offer an explicit language selection mechanism to indicate the natural language of your document or changes in natural language at any point within the content. Google Docs defaults the natural language to the language selected for your Google Account. Users can change your typing language in Google Docs (see Google: Change Your Typing Language).
When exporting to other document formats, there is no guarantee that the natural language of your Google Account will be indicated as the natural language of your document. In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
While Google Docs does not offer an explicit language selection mechanism, users can set the document language when using the Grackle Docs plugin (see Technique 11). Using Grackle, users can set document properties including document title and document language. This is mainly needed if using Grackle to export to other file formats, like PDF.
Google Docs offers a mechanism for adding alternative text to images and objects where it can be readily accessed by screen reader users. While you can add alt text, you will need to ensure that you provide the longer descriptions in the body of the document, near the images and objects. While this solution is not optimal for screen reader users and will complicate your own accessibility testing, it is necessary until long descriptions are supported.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
When images and objects are inserted into Google Docs they default to being positioned “inline” with the text. There is also the option to attach images and objects to a fixed position on the page. A “floating” object keeps its position relative to the page, while text flows around it. As content moves up or down on the page, the object stays where it was placed. To ensure that images and objects remain with the text that references it, always position it as “inline” with the text at the end of the in-text reference. Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
Any document longer than a few paragraphs could benefit from adding structure to make content easier for readers to understand. One of the simplest ways to do this is to use actual headings (or “true headings”) to create logical divisions between paragraphs. Using actual headings means applying a built-in heading style — rather than just formatting content with bolded, enlarged, or centered text. Built-in heading styles are structural elements that communicate order and levels, which provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
Curb Cuts: Using actual headings provides several important benefits:
<h1> HTML element.For details on how to modify a heading or text style, see Google: Set and change a default style.
For a complete listing of keyboard shortcuts, see Google: Keyboard shortcuts for Google Docs.
As with actual or “true” headings (see Technique 5), you should attempt to make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “emphasis”, “caption”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names). For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9. Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
At this time, Google Docs does not offer a mechanism that allows you to select and indicate headings for rows and columns. Since it is not possible to create complex tables in Google Docs that are accessible, avoid creating complex tables since table headers cannot be designated.
If you use the Grackle Docs add-on, tables can be given structure and table headings can be indicated. While these fixes won’t be useful for making tables more accessible in Google Docs, it does allow you to export the document into another format with appropriate table tags intact. For more on Grackle Docs, see Technique 11.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
Since Google Docs does not provide a feature to repeat header rows at the top of each page, you would need to break your table into separate tables. Then, you would manually add a row at the top of the table and copy/paste header info at the top of each page. For detailed instructions on how to work with tables in Google Docs, see Google: Add and edit Tables.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break (Windows: CTRL + Enter; Mac: ⌘ + Enter) instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office-document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content. You can see your document’s structure with a table of contents. Each item in the table of contents links to your document’s headings.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
For more details, see: Google: How to add or change a table of contents.
In Google Docs, you can add page numbers and the number of total pages to a document.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
For more details, see Google: Add or remove headers, footers and page numbers.
At this time, Google Docs makes use of a single document name. Within Google Docs, this serves well as a title, but when exporting to ODT, the document name is used to form the file name and the ODT “Title” properties field is left blank. Note: In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
If using third-party add-on Grackle Docs, you can add a document title. After updating this setting, the document title will be preserved in the document’s metadata when exporting to PDF using Grackle. It is one of the first checks that appears in the Grackle Docs sidebar after launching (see Technique 11).
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
Curb Cuts: If the chart data is also provided in an appendix, it will be easier for all users to make use of the data.Charts that you create in Google Sheets can be linked to a Google Docs document.
For more details, see the following:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted in Technique 3.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate, and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
While there is no accessibility checking feature built into Google Docs, you can install a third-party add-on called Grackle Docs.
What is Grackle Docs? Grackle Docs is a third-party add-on that runs on documents created in Google Docs. It helps with checking and improving the digital accessibility of your document. Due to the nature of Google Docs, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like a PDF file.
How does it work? After Grackle is launched, It scans the current document for accessibility issues and identifies and locates errors. Feedback appears in a sidebar that is docked on right-side of the screen. By exploring the sidebar, you can immediately learn about accessibility issues and find and fix the detected errors by interacting with the Grackle sidebar.
Note: Grackle’s accessibility checker is free to use; however, the ability to export and produce accessible HTML and PDF documents is only free for the first 30 days (as of December 2019).
At present, Grackle Docs performs the following 22 accessibility checks:
Grackle Docs can be installed from the Add-ons menu of a Google Docs document.
Grackle Docs is simple to launch and is accessed from the Add-ons menu. Open a Google document
To view a sample Google Doc that will give you a sense of how Grackle Docs works, see Grackle Docs Walkthrough Document from Grackle. Automated accessibility checkers cannot be trusted to check for all accessibility concerns, so be sure to review the recommended techniques in this document.
Save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 .
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Google Docs more accessible to users, documentation is provided through online articles and Help forums:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google docs: Documents by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
n accessibility checking feature.
This icon highlights “curb cut” opportunities in these techniques. “Curb cuts” are situations in which accommodations made for accessibility reasons will also result in significantly better and more efficient outcomes for everyone. The name comes from sidewalk “curb cuts” that were added for people in wheelchairs, but are commonly used by people with baby strollers, handcarts, wheeled luggage, and others.At the time of testing (December 2019), Word provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. In addition, Word includes an accessibility checking feature. This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Word is Office Open XML (DOCX).
In addition, Word offers many other word processor and web format saving options (e.g., PDF, HTML, OpenDocument Text, Rich Text Format, etc.). Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available in Technique 11.
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
All office documents start with a template. These can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or complex nearly complete document with text, graphics, and other content (e.g., a “meeting minutes” template). Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 10. Check Accessibility). Word’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes a variety of other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank. It is also possible to create your own accessible templates.
Curb Cuts: Updating templates is also a good opportunity to improve document consistency, copy-editing, and branding.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., one that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
In order to enable for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to present your document accurately, you must indicate the natural (human) language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Curb Cuts: The specified document language is also used by the spelling and grammar checker. In Canada, make sure to choose “English (Canada)” to avoid having to override American spellings of words such as “colour.”
Word has an automatic language detection mechanism, which can automatically detect the language of your text. If you type a section of text in a different language than the rest of your document, Word should programmatically mark the language of that section of text appropriately.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This is done by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (e.g., artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Curb Cuts: Sometimes it may not be clear what a particular image is meant to convey and alternative text can provide that clarity. Also, alternate text has been shown to be included in search engines rankings.Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When inserting a very small image (or resizing a larger image to be much smaller) and following it with text, Word sometimes assumes that the image is intended to be a bullet-point for a bulleted list. Once Word defines the image as a bullet, the option to add alternative text disappears. Select Undo, to redefine the bullet as an image.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word, the Alt Text menu is also available in the right-click, pop-up menu that appears when you right-click on an image.
For more information, see these resources:
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
When certain elements (e.g., images, objects, text boxes) are inserted into Word documents they default to being an “inline object”. Inline objects keep their position on the page relative to a position in the text. This is beneficial for users of assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers), because the position of the object in the document order is clear, so the screen reader can read the object’s alternative content (e.g., Description field) when the user moves keyboard focus to that position. However, Word also provides the option to have these elements “float” outside of the text order, with text flowing around, under or over it. This is a problem because the position of the object in the document is no longer clear and the screen reader will often read the alternative text out of context, which can be confusing. These text flow options should be avoided. Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects such as arrows, lines and shapes directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects (e.g., pictures).
Curb Cuts: In-line elements are often easier to work with than floating elements, which can end up being shifted into strange positions as editing earlier parts of a document cause repagination.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Word, you can also keep pictures in-line with text by selecting the object and choose a wrapping option from the pop-up icon.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them easier for readers to understand. One of the simplest ways to do this is to use “True Headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centred text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
Curb Cuts: Using true headings provides several important benefits: (1) Headings are used by Word to auto-generate a table of contents (see Technique 6.5 Use a Table of Contents); (2) Headings are used by the “Navigation Pane” which is especially helpful for long documents (see Word’s “Navigation” Feature); and you can update all of the headings of a particular type at once, which keeps them consistent.<h1> HTML element.
Sometimes heading levels may not appear in lists described above. For example, the list might contain “Heading 1” and “Heading 2”, but not “Heading 3”. In this case, it is still possible to apply the unlisted style:
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Curb Cuts: Using built-in structural features is much more reliable that trying to use typography for formatting (e.g., tabs to separate table cells, repeated new lines for a page break).When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists.” Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use the Columns feature for placing text in columns. Note: Because columns can be a challenge for some users with disabilities (e.g., people using magnifiers), consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content. The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles (e.g., “Heading 1,” “Heading 2,” “Heading 3”) as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents. Note: If you do not want the main title of the document to appear in the generated table of contents, mark it with the “Title” style.
Numbering the pages of you document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it can provide a valuable point of reference within the document.
If you plan to convert the document into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word, follow these steps:
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Curb Cuts: If the chart data is also provided in an appendix, it will be easier for all users to make use of the data.WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Curb Cuts: All users will benefit from content that is easier to see.When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such as the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable default level of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1.
To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid colour for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colours in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as the TPG Contrast Analyser or the WebAIM: Contrast Checker.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the colour or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or colour combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text.” If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability
Curb Cuts: By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users.Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1. Use Accessible Templates), Word offers an “Accessibility Checker” to review your document against a set of possible issues that users with disabilities may experience in your file.
Important Note: No checker can detect all types of accessibility issues. For example it can tell if alternative text is missing, but it cannot tell if alternative text is actually correct. It also doesn’t test for some issues, including colour contrast. The Office website provides more information about the Accessibility Checker, including the rules it uses to identify and classify accessibility issues. The “Accessibility Checker” classifies issues as
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 10. Check Accessibility.
After you have populated your document with content and true headings have been applied, you may wish to rearrange the content. In order to maintain the integrity and accessibility of the altered sequence, you will need to ensure that structural information (e.g. heading levels) is adjusted accordingly. Word provides a “Navigation” mechanism which displays all parts of the document, such as headings, paragraphs, objects, etc. in sequential order. It helps you navigate, access, and manipulate the content. You can move headings or subordinate text up or down, rearranging their sequence in a way that can be programmatically determined and therefore accessible to assistive technologies.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Word more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft Word 2013 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Word for Mac provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, Word 2011 for Mac does not include an accessibility checking feature.
Editor’s note: Later versions of Word for Mac include an accessibility checker (for 2016 and later versions). For more information, see Technique 11 or review how to make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities.
This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
For more information on creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content that are accessible, you should consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Word for Mac is Office Open XML (DOCX).
In addition, Word for Mac offers many other word processor and web format saving options, however most of these have not been checked for accessibility.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content.
Microsoft Word for Mac’s default template for a new documents is a blank page. It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Word for Mac. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Only use the following steps if an accessible template is available (e.g. a previous templates that is already created). Otherwise, simply open a new blank document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present the document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document (e.g., English, French). If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
Editor’s note: To learn more about adding alternative text to images and graphical objects, see the video on how to improve accessibility with alt text.
When images and objects are inserted into Word for Mac documents, they default to being an “in line with text.” In this case, you do not need to change anything.
However, if you are editing a document that includes a “floating” image or object, use the procedure below:
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word, the instructions are simplified slightly, as follows:
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use “True Headings”. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centred text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Word for Mac, the Styles Pane button is visible on the right side of the Home tab.
This refers to changing the appearance of all text marked with a certain style.
Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
Default named styles can be applied the same way as headings (see Technique 5).
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word for Mac, the insert table functions are in found in the Insert tab.
Note: Be sure to designate table headers: In the Table Design tab, select the checkbox for Header Row, to indicate table headings.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. However, because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, you should consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Word for Mac, the Table of Contents drop-down menu is located under the References menu.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Word for Mac, the Update Table button is located under the References tab.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word for Mac, go to the Insert tab to find the Page Number button.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the colour or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or colour combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
At this time, Word 2011 for Mac does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Word for Mac, there is an accessibility checker, located under the Tools menu. For detailed instructions, see the following resources:
It is also possible possible to create tagged PDFs using later versions of Word for Mac:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Word more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Vellicia Christanto, Jan Richards
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft Word 2011:Mac by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
This icon highlights “curb cut” opportunities in these techniques. “Curb cuts” are situations in which accommodations made for accessibility reasons will also result in significantly better and more efficient outcomes for everyone. The name comes from sidewalk “curb cuts” that were added for people in wheelchairs, but are commonly used by people with baby strollers, handcarts, wheeled luggage, and others.At the time of testing (September 30, 2010), Word 2010 provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. In addition, Word 2010 includes an accessibility checking feature.
This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Word 2010 is Office Open XML (DOCX).
In addition, Word 2010 offers many other word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below).
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
All office documents start with a template. These can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or complex nearly-complete document with text, graphics and other content (e.g., a “Meeting Minutes” template). Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 10. Check Accessibility).
Word 2010’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes blank business card, blank label templates, and other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank. It is possible to create your own accessible templates.
Curb Cuts: Updating templates is also a good opportunity to improve document consistency, copy-editing, and branding.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
In order for assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, you must indicate the natural (human) language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Curb Cuts: The specified document language is also used by the spelling and grammar checker. In Canada, make sure to choose “English (Canada)” to avoid having to override American spellings of words such as “colour.”To change the default language
Word 2010 has an automatic language detection mechanism, which can automatically detect the language of your text. If you type a section of text in a different language than the rest of your document, Word 2010 will programmatically mark the language of that section of text appropriately.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This is done by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (e.g. artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Curb Cuts: Sometimes it may not be clear what a particular image is meant to convey and alternative text can provide that clarity. Also, alternate text has been shown to be included in search engines rankings.Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
If a Word 2010 document is saved to HTML, the Title and Description fields are combined into a single entry within the HTML <alt> tag. [Tested: September 30th, 2010]
When inserting a very small image, or resizing a larger image to be much smaller, Word 2010 assumes that the image is intended to be a bullet-point for a bulleted list. Once Word 2010 defines the image as a bullet, the option to add alternative text disappears. Select Undo, to redefine the bullet as an image. When you right-click* the image, select Format Picture… and select the Alt Text tab in the Format Picture dialog. Alternative text can be found, or can be entered, into the Alternative text box.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
When certain elements (e.g., images, objects, text boxes) are inserted into Word 2010 documents they default to being an “inline object”. Inline objects keep their position on the page relative to a position in the text. This is beneficial for users of assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers), because the screen reader can simply read the object (or its alternative text) when it reaches that point in the text flow, so the context is clear.
However, Word 2010 also provides the option to have these elements “float” outside of the text order, with text flowing around, under or over it. This is a problem for screen reader users because their screen reader will often read the text (or alternative text) out of context, which can be confusing. These text flow options should be avoided.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects such as arrows, lines and shapes directly into the document (e.g. as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects (e.g., pictures).
Curb Cuts: In-line elements are often easier to work with than floating elements, which can end up being shifted into strange positions as editing earlier parts of a document cause re-pagination.WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them easier for readers to understand. One of the simplest ways to do this is to use “True Headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centered text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
Curb Cuts: Using true headings provides several important benefits: (1) Headings are used by Word 2010 to auto-generate a table of contents (see Technique 6.5 Use a Table of Contents); (2) Headings are used by the “Navigation Pane” which is especially helpful for long documents (see Word 2010’s “Navigation” Feature); and you can update all of the headings of a particular type at once, which keeps them consistent.WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Curb Cuts: Using built-in structural features is much more reliable that trying to use typography for formatting (e.g. tabs to separate table cells, repeated new lines for a page break).When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use the Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for some users with disabilities (e.g., people using magnifiers), consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
Numbering the pages of you document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Curb Cuts: If the chart data is also provided in an appendix, it will be easier for all users to make use of the data.WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Curb Cuts: All users will benefit from content that is easier to see.When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such as the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as the TPG Contrast Analyser or the WebAIM: Contrast Checker.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g. to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
WCAG 2.0 Applicability:
Curb Cuts: By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users.Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1. Use Accessible Templates), Word 2010 offers an “Accessibility Checker” to review your document against a set of possible issues that users with disabilities may experience in your file.
Important Note: No checker can detect all types of accessibility issues. For example it can tell if alternative text is missing, but it cannot tell if alternative text is actually correct. It also doesn’t test for some issues, including colour contrast.
The Office website provides more information about the Accessibility Checker, including the rules it uses to identify and classify accessibility issues.
The “Accessibility Checker” classifies issues as
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 10. Check Accessibility.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
After you have populated your document with content and true headings have been applied, you may wish to rearrange the content. In order to maintain the integrity and accessibility of the altered sequence, you will need to ensure that structural information (e.g., heading levels) is adjusted accordingly.
Word 2010 provides a “Navigation” mechanism which displays all parts of the document, such as headings, paragraphs, objects, etc. in sequential order. It helps you navigate, access, and manipulate the content. You can move headings or subordinate text up or down, rearranging their sequence in a way that can be programmatically determined and therefore accessible to assistive technologies.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Word 2010 more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft Word 2010 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 26, 2011), Word 2008 for Mac lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: the ability to add alternative text to image and objects. As a result, some of the other features that might otherwise support accessibility, such as its extensive templates are not as effective. In addition, Word 2008 for Mac does not include an accessibility checking feature.
This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Word for Mac is Office Open XML (DOCX).
In addition, Word 2008 for Mac offers many other word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 11 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft Word 2008 for Mac (ver.12.0.0 (071130), Mac OS X, Jan. 2011) while creating a DOCX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats, which is useful for checking accessibility (see Technique 12, below).
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results. If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used.
Word for Mac’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes blank business card, blank label templates, and other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Word for Mac. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
At this time, Word 2008 for Mac does not offer a mechanism which enables the user to add alternative text descriptions to images or objects. [Tested: January 26, 2011]
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When images and objects are inserted into Word 2008 for Mac documents they default to being an “inline object”. Inline objects keep their position on the page relative to a portion of the text.
A “floating” object keeps its position relative to the page, while text flows around it. As content moves up or down on the page, the object stays where it was placed. To ensure that images and objects remain with the text that references it, always position it as an inline object.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use “True Headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centered text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
As with “True Headings” (see Technique 5), you should attempt to make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “emphasis”, “caption”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
At this time, it is not possible to modify pre-formatted list styles or to create your own list styles. [Tested: January 26, 2011]
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. However, because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, you should consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
At this time, Word 2008 for Mac does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: January 26th, 2011]
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
Note: Before saving in other formats, you may want to run the Compatibility Report feature by selecting Compatibility Report… from the Save As dialog. This checks the compatibility of your existing document with the format you have selected save your document as. The results of this check are revealed in the Compatibility Report dialog, where you have explanations of errors and options to fix them. To run this check at any time, go to menu item: View > Toolbox, Compatibility Report.
While Word 2008 for Mac allows you to save documents in the PDF format. However, at this time, it does not offer an explicit option to save your document in the tagged PDF format. [Tested: January 26th, 2011]
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note:For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Use one of the web accessibility checkers available online, such as:
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results by the IDRC.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Word 2008 for Mac more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Word 2008 for Mac by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 10, 2011), Word 2007 provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, Word 2007 does not include an accessibility checking feature.
This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Word 2007 is Office Open XML (DOCX).
In addition, Word 2007 offers many other word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility.
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Accessibility Checking, below).
Word 2007’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes blank business card, blank label templates, and other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Word 2007. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Word 2007 has an automatic language detection mechanism, which can automatically detect the language of your text. If you type a section of text in a different language than the rest of your document, Word 2007 will programmatically mark the language of that section of text appropriately.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When inserting a very small image, or resizing a larger image to be much smaller, Word 2007 assumes that the image is intended to be a bullet-point for a bulleted list. Once Word 2007 defines the image as a bullet, the option to add alternative text disappears. Select Undo, to redefine the bullet as an image. When you right-click* the image, select Format Picture… and select the Alt Text tab in the Format Picture dialog. Alternative text can be found, or can be entered, into the Alternative text box.
When images and objects are inserted into Word 2007 documents they default to being an “inline object”. Inline objects keep their position on the page relative to a portion of the text. A “floating” object keeps its position relative to the page, while text flows around it. As content moves up or down on the page, the object stays where it was placed. To ensure that images and objects remain with the text that references it, always position it as an inline object.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use “True Headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centered text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. However, because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, you should consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
At this time, Word 2007 does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: January 10th, 2011]
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template, then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online, such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility.
To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see below.
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online, such as:
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Word 2007 more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Word 2007 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (September 30, 2010), Pages ’09 lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: the ability to add alternative text to image and objects. As a result, some of the other features that might otherwise support accessibility, such as its extensive templates are not as effective.
In addition, Pages does not include an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using Pages to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Pages is the native iWork format.
In addition, Pages offers many other word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using iWork Pages ’09 (ver.4.0.3 (766), Mac OS X, Sept. 2010) and Pages (version 8.1) while producing a document in the native iWork file format. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
The default template for new documents in Pages is a blank page. The basic installation also includes blank letter templates and blank business reports. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Pages. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Pages, instructions for applying language to specific text is not specified. Users can, however, change a document’s formatting and language.
For detailed instructions, see how to format a document for another language in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
At this time, Pages ’09 does not offer a mechanism which enables the user to add alternative text descriptions to images or objects. [Tested: September 28, 2010]
Editor’s note: In later versions of Pages, users can add alternative text descriptions for images and objects:
For more details, see the section on how to add an image description in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
Pages will default the position of an inserted image or object depending on the method that is used to insert it. If you use a method that requires you to simply drag-and-drop the image or object onto the document, it will automatically be positioned as “floating”.
A “floating” object keeps its position relative to the page, while text flows around it. As content moves up or down on the page, the object stays where it was placed. To ensure that images and objects remain with the text that references it, press the Command key and then drag the image onto the document or follow the steps below.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Pages, the instructions for adding an image inline is slightly different:
For more details, see how to place objects inline with text in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use “true headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centered text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Pages, after selecting text, follow these steps to create new heading styles:
For more details, see how to create a paragraph style in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
As with “True Headings” (see Technique 5), you should attempt to make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “emphasis”, “caption”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Pages, follow these instructions to create an ordered or unordered list:
For more details, see how to format a list in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Pages, follow these instructions to generate a table:
For more details, see how to insert a table of contents into a word-processing document in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the steps noted in Technique 3.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
Editor’s note: For more details on this topic, see how to link to a webpage, email, or page in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
At this time (December 2019), Pages does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. As well, it is not currently possible to export Pages documents as HTML.
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see how to export to Word, PDF, or another file format in the Pages User Guide for Mac.
Save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online, such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when exporting to formats other than the default.
At this time (December 2019), it is not possible to export Pages documents as HTML files.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Pages more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: iWork Pages ’09 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
The techniques described in this document apply both to OpenOffice Writer 3.4.0 and LibreOffice 4.0.4.2. There are sometimes minor differences in the toolbars and dialogs between the two office suites, but these differences do not require different instructions.
At the time of testing (July 2013), Writer provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. An accessibility checking feature is available by installing the AccessODF extension.
Editor’s note: For later versions of OpenOffice Writer and LibreOffice, the accessibility checking features made available through AccessODF is no longer stable (tested on OpenOffice 4.1.7 and LibreOffice 6.3.1.2).
We recommended using other applications, such as current versions of Microsoft Word, which has a robust suite of tools available for creating accessible documents.
This guide is intended to be used for documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Writer is Open Document Text (ODT). In addition, Writer offers many other word processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12.
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Several techniques refer to the Styles and Formatting dialog. By default, this is a floating dialog but it can also be docked, so it becomes a panel. When the dialog or panel is open, keyboard users can navigate to it using the key F6. The same applies to the Navigator, which can either float over the editing area or be docked next to it.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
Writer’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes blank business card and blank label templates. These are all fairly accessible by virtue of being blank. However, you should make the default language of a template unambiguous (see Technique 2).
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Writer. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
The default language of hyperlinks in Writer is “None”. If all or most hyperlinks in a document are in the same language, you should modify the style for hyperlinks.
Some issues have been observed with Writer involving the loss of alternative text and longer descriptions (e.g., when images anchored to a paragraph are changed to anchor as characters, when a caption is added). We suggest that you guard against this data loss by keeping backups and by setting image anchoring and captions before adding the alternative text.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
Note: When inserting a new image or object in place of an existing image or object, the alternative text and description will remain the same. This is helpful if you are inserting an updated version of an image, whose meaning and context has not change. However, when inserting an entirely new image or object, you will be required to change the title and description fields accordingly.
Note: When inserting a picture or object that is too large for the height or width of the page, it is best to reduce the size before inserting it into the document. This results in a smaller file size and usually better image quality.
When images and objects are inserted into Writer documents they default to “floating” with an anchor “To Paragraph”. This makes them difficult to select with the keyboard, so “floating” should be prevented by anchoring them “As Character”.
A “floating” object keeps its position relative to the page, while text flows around it. As content moves up or down on the page, the object stays where it was placed. To ensure that images and objects remain with the text that references it, always position it has attached to a character at the end of the in-text reference.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
Any documents that are longer than a few paragraphs require structuring to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use “True Headings” to create logical divisions between paragraphs. True headings are more than just bolded, enlarged, or centered text; they are structural elements that order and levels provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
As with “True Headings” (see Technique 5), you should attempt to make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “emphasis”, “caption”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Writer provides named “paragraph styles” for “caption”, “endnote”, etc. Styles for strong emphasis, emphasis, source code and quotations are not paragraph styles but “character styles”. You can access character styles by selecting the Character Styles icon in the Styles and Formatting dialog.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
This applies a paragraph style for lists that makes sure that assistive technology and other software can recognize the content as a list.
There are two methods for adding visual list formatting to this list: the first one modifies the applied paragraph style:
The second method changes the visual formatting of a list without changing all lists based on the same style:
This is the only way to create a true sublist (i.e. a list that is (internally) a child list of the list item above it) instead of a list that is merely indented more from the margin.
Note: This does not create new paragraph styles but new formatting styles that you can apply to paragraph styles for lists. Even though the names for the formatting styles (List 1, Numbering 1 etc.) that appear when you select the List Styles icon are the same as some of the paragraph styles that appear when you select the Paragraph Styles icon, their purpose is different: the Paragraph Styles are for document structure and other paragraph features (e.g. indent), the List Styles are for the numbering or bullet style.
Use the Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
Start a new page by inserting a page break instead of repeated hard returns.
To insert a page break, use the shortcut Ctrl + Enter or go to the menu item Format > Manual Break and select Page Break (the default option).
Creating an index or table of contents to outline office document content can provide a means of navigating the meaningful sequence of content.
The best way to generate a table of contents is after applying the predefined heading styles, such as “Heading 1” as described above, to the headings that you want to include in your table of contents. After you apply these styles, you can then create a table of contents.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience.
Repeat these steps for each legend key.
Repeat these steps for each legend key.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted in Technique 3, above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), download the AccessODF extension and install it using Writer’s Extension Manager (Tools > Extension Manager…). This extension offers an “Accessibility Evaluation” function to review your document against a set of possible issues that users with disabilities may experience in your file.
AccessODF classifies issues as either:
More complete instructions are available in the AccessODF User Guide.
Note: Currently, AccessODF 0.1.0 is not compatible with OpenOffice 4.0 (with the new
sidebar) and LibreOffice 4.1 (with or without the sidebar).
Editor’s note: AccessODF has not been updated recently, and it does not work with later versions of OpenOffice or LibreOffice.
Since the AccessODF plugin may not work with current versions of OpenOffice or LibreOffice, consider saving the document as an HTML or PDF file and check those formats for accessibility. This will allow you to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template.
Save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online, such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
You may wish to use HTML editors or utilities to help with this process.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
Editor’s note: The plugins above have not been updated recently and may no longer work with current versions of OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
After you have populated your document with content and true headings have been applied, you may wish to rearrange the content. In order to maintain the integrity and accessibility of the altered sequence, you will need to ensure that structural information (e.g., heading levels) is adjusted accordingly.
Writer provides a “Navigator” mechanism which displays all parts of the document, such as headings, tables, frames, objects or hyperlinks. These elements are referred to as “categories”. If a plus sign appears next to any one of the categories, it means there is more than one object of its kind within the document.
The “Navigator” feature helps you navigate document content, as well as access and manipulate the content. This enables you to move headings or subordinate text up or down in a document, as well as promote or demote heading levels. Arranging objects and other elements of the document is possible as well, following the same principle as arranging headings and text. This allows you to apply a meaningful sequence that can be programmatically determined and therefore accessible to assistive technologies.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make Writer more accessible to users, consult one of the the following:
For OpenOffice Writer:
For LibreOffice Writer:
Authors: Jan Richards (IDRC), Sabrina Ruplall (IDRC), and Christophe Strobbe (Stuttgart Media University)
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: OpenOffice Writer (v3.4) and LibreOffice Writer (v4.0.4.2) by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Google Sheets lacks some features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: the ability to indicate changes in natural language, programmatically determined named styles, and a separate document title field.
No accessibility checking feature is built into Google Sheets; however, you can install a third-party add-on called Grackle Sheets. Grackle is a third-party plug-in that includes an accessibility checker along with other features that enhance accessibility (see Technique 11). Due to the nature of Google Sheets, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like an HTML file.
You should use these techniques when you are using Google Sheets to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
Google Sheets does not have a default file format, as it is a web-based authoring tool.
Google Sheets offers various spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups . In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12).
Editor’s note: Since the content of this page has been heavily updated from the original article (Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google docs: Spreadsheets), the usual editor’s notes that flag new content will be omitted. The application-specific steps and screenshots were updated in December 2019.
Google Sheets lacks support for some accessibility features, such as table headers that repeat. With this in mind, be cautious of templates available in the Google Sheets template gallery and be sure that they comply the techniques discussed here.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
Google Sheets’s default template for new documents is a blank spreadsheet. The basic installation also includes a wide variety of templates ranging from blank service invoices to blank project management schedules. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own templates from scratch in Google Sheets. As well, you can edit and modify the existing templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
You can share your accessible template, but it may be more useful to share the file as copy that other users can add to their Google Drive.
For more information, see the resources below:
At this time (December 2019), Google Sheets does not offer an explicit language selection mechanism to indicate the natural language of your spreadsheet or changes in natural language at any point within the content (e.g., a few cells containing text in a different language than the rest of the spreadsheet). Google Sheets defaults the natural language to the language selected for your Google Account (see Google: Change Your Typing Language).
When exporting to other document formats, there is no guarantee that the natural language of your Google Account will be indicated as the natural language of your document. In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Google Sheets offers a mechanism for adding alternative text or longer descriptions to images and objects where it can be readily accessed by screen reader users. While you can add alt text, you will need to ensure that you provide longer descriptions in the body of the document, near the images and objects. While this solution is not optimal for screen reader users and will complicate your own accessibility testing, it is necessary until long descriptions are supported.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
Note: The image used in the alt text screenshots above are by John Tenniel from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from the original 1865 edition of the book.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
At this time (December 2019), Google Sheets does not offer named styles functionality.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 6.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
For more details, see the following articles from the Google Help Center:
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Spreadsheet applications support various types of charts, which can be used to display your spreadsheet data in meaningful ways for your audience. It is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help to correctly interpret the information.
At this time (December 2019), Google Sheets does not include an “Insert Table” feature.
If you use the Grackle Sheets add-on, tables can be given structure and table headings can be indicated. While these fixes won’t be useful for making tables more accessible in Google Sheets, it does allow you to export the document into another format with appropriate table tags intact. For more on Grackle Sheets, see Technique 11.
While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
At this time, Google Sheets makes use of a single document name. Within Google Sheets, this serves well as a title, but when exporting to ODT, the document name is used to form the file name and the ODT “Title” properties field is left blank.
In case the document is ever converted into another format (e.g., HTML or PDF), it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid “floating” elements (other than charts) such as floating images, objects, tables or text boxes. Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
To learn how to insert images and graphical object into Google Sheets, see Google: Add an image to a spreadsheet.
In Google Sheets, spreadsheets have the default name “Sheet1” and so on. To improve the accessibility and navigability of your spreadsheets, follow these recommendations:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change document details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. If you are using this cell for a label or data, you can attach a comment note to the cell containing navigational instructions.
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
At this time (December 2019), Google Sheets does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. However, a third-party add-on called Grackle Sheets can be used to check the accessibility of your workbook (see below).
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats (see Evaluating the Accessibility in Other Formats).
What is Grackle Sheets? Grackle Sheets is a third-party add-on that runs on spreadsheets created in Google Sheets. It helps with checking and improving the digital accessibility of your document. Due to the nature of Google Sheets, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like an HTML file.
How does it work? After Grackle is launched, It scans the current spreadsheet for accessibility issues and identifies and locates errors. Feedback appears in a sidebar that is docked on right-side of the screen. By exploring the sidebar, you can immediately learn about accessibility issues and find and fix the detected errors by interacting with the Grackle sidebar.
Note: Grackle’s accessibility checker is free to use; however, the ability to export and produce accessible HTML spreadsheets, and so on, is only free for the first 30 days (as of December 2019).
At the time of testing, Grackle Sheets performs the following 13 accessibility checks:
Grackle Sheets can be installed from the Add-ons menu of a Google Docs document.
Grackle Sheets is simple to launch and is accessed from the Add-ons menu.
Note: During testing, we noticed that Grackle Sheets may flag a chart as needing alt text even though alt text has been provided.
Automated accessibility checkers cannot be trusted to check for all accessibility concerns, so be sure to review the recommended techniques in this document.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
When using Google Slides’ HTML view, your whole presentation is displayed in a single, scrollable HTML page, instead of displaying the presentation one slide at a time. This is a helpful feature if your audience includes people who use screen readers.
To access a presentation in HTML view, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Shift + p (Windows or Chrome OS) or ⌘ + Option + Shift + p (Mac).
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Google Sheets more accessible to users, documentation is provided through online articles and Help forums:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google Sheets by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Excel 2010 and later versions provide a set of accessibility features that are sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. In addition, Excel includes an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using Excel to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Excel is Office Open XML (XSLX). In addition, Excel offers many other spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft Excel 2010 (ver.14.0.4760.1000, Windows XP, Sept. 2010) and Microsoft Excel included with Office 365 while creating a XLSX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11, below).
Excel’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Excel. You can also edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Editor’s note: For those using later versions of Excel, here’s a video about finding and exploring features of accessible Excel templates.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
At this time (December 2019), it is not possible to indicate the natural language of selected cells within an Excel workbook.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
If an Excel document is saved to HTML, the Title and Description fields are combined into a single entry within the HTML <alt> tag.
Editor’s note: To add alt text to a picture in later versions of Excel, follow these instructions:
For more details, see how to add alt text to an image or graphical object.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names). For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. It can also be use as a navigation. When using the shortcut Ctrl + G a dialog box will open and layout all the names define in the cells. When selected and the OK button is pressed it will navigate to the located place.
By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Excel, here’s a video on how to create accessible charts.
You can select charts from selection pane.
This can be launched with keyboard sequence ALT+H,FD,P
This is a toggle command, so if the selection pane is already visible, it gets hidden after this.
When the selection pane is active, by default the first object (chart or shape) will be highlighted. You can select it by pressing enter or tab to move to other options or use the arrow keys.
Excel includes an “Insert Table” feature, but this works by applying cell formatting to spreadsheet cells. As such, it is not a structural feature in the same way that tables are in Word and PowerPoint.
While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. For example, the first cell might read: “This worksheet includes two data tables. The first begins at cell A1 and lists travel expenses. The second begins at cell A50 and lists moving expenses.”
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1, above), Excel offers an “Accessibility Checker” to review your document against a set of possible issues that users with disabilities may experience in your file.
To learn more about the Accessibility Checker and the rules it uses to identify and classify accessibility issues in your document, visit the Excel help section (see Accessibility Help, below). Use the search term “accessibility checker rules” in the help search box.
In order to get further indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 (above).
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Excel more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Editor’s note: For later versions of Excel, here are resources to help you create accessible workbooks.
This document was produced as part of theAccessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project).
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft Excel 2010 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), as long as images and graphical objects are avoided, Excel for Mac provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, Excel 2008 for Mac does not include an accessibility checking feature.
Editor’s note: In the later versions of Excel for Mac, users can add alt text for images and graphical objects and check accessibility. For more information, see Excel for Mac Help.
You should use these techniques when you are using Excel for Mac to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Excel for Mac is Office Open XML (XLSX).
In addition, Excel for Mac offers many other spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
*Right-click: To right-click with the keyboard, select the object using the Shift+Arrow keys and then press either (1) the “Right-Click” key (some keyboard have this to the right of the spacebar) or Shift+F10.
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac (ver. 12.0 (071130), Mac OS X, Jan. 2011) and Microsoft Excel (version 16.16.16) while creating a XLSX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results. If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Accessibility Checking, below).
Excel for Mac’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Excel for Mac. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
At this time, it is not possible to indicate the natural language of selected cells within an Excel for Mac workbook. As well, it is not possible to change the default language of an Excel for Mac workbook.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
At this time, Excel 2008 for Mac does not offer the functionality of adding alternative text to images or graphical objects.
Editor’s note: For later versions of Excel for Mac, users can add alt text. For more information, see how to add alt text for images and graphical objects.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
At this time, Excel for Mac does not offer a Named Styles feature.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
Excel for Mac includes a “Data Table” feature, but this meant for analyzing data by applying preformatted formulas within the data table. As such, it is not a structural feature in the same way that tables are in Word.
While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid “floating” elements (other than charts) such as floating images, objects, tables or text boxes.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. If you are using this cell for a label or data, you can attach a comment note to the cell containing navigational instructions.
At this time, Excel 2008 for Mac does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing.
Editor’s note: Later versions of Excel for Mac include an accessibility checker. For detailed instructions about how to use the accessibility checker, see how to make your Excel documents accessible to people with disabilities.
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
Note: Before saving in other formats, you may want to run the Compatibility Report feature by selecting Compatibility Report… from the Save As dialog. This checks the compatibility of your existing document with the format you have selected save your document as. The results of this check are revealed in the Compatibility Report dialog, where you have explanations of errors and options to fix them. To run this check at any time, go to menu item: View > Toolbox, Compatibility Report.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results by the IDRC.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Excel for Mac more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
For more information, see the following resources from Microsoft:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Excel 2008 for Mac by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 10, 2011), Excel 2007 provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, Excel 2007 does not include an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using Excel 2007 to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Excel 2007 is Office Open XML (XLSX).
In addition, Excel 2007 offers many other spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft Excel 2007 (ver.12.0.6545.5000, Windows 7, Jan. 2011) while creating a XLSX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results. If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11, below).
Excel 2007’s default template for new documents is a blank page. The basic installation also includes other blank office-related documents. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Excel 2007. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
At this time, it is not possible to indicate the natural language of selected cells within an Excel 2007 workbook. [Tested: Jan 10, 2011]
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names). For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Spreadsheet applications support various types of charts, which can be used to display your spreadsheet data in meaningful ways for your audience. It is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help to correctly interpret the information.
Excel 2007 includes an “Insert Table” feature but this works by applying cell formatting to spreadsheet cells. As such, it is not a structural feature in the same way that tables are in Word 2010 and PowerPoint 2010.
While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid “floating” elements such as floating images, objects, tables or text boxes.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. If you are using this cell for a label or data, you can attach a comment note to the cell containing navigational instructions.
At this time, Excel 2007 does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: January 10th, 2011]
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 (above).
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Excel 2007 more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Excel 2007 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (September 30, 2010), Numbers ‘09 lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: the ability to add alternative text to images and objects, the ability to indicate nature language, and programmatically determined named styles, cell naming, image and object anchoring, or change tracking features. As a result, some of the other features that might otherwise support accessibility, such as its extensive templates are not as effective. In addition, Numbers ‘09 does not include an accessibility checking feature, which is a more advanced accessibility feature.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Numbers, Apple added some updates to improve accessibility, including the ability to add alt text to images and graphical objects. To learn more about accessibility tips in Numbers, see how to create accessible spreadsheets with Numbers.
You should use these techniques when you are using Numbers to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Numbers is the native iWork format.
In addition, Numbers ‘09 offers many other spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 13:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using iWork Numbers ‘09 (ver.2.0.3 (332), Mac OS X, Sept. 2010) and Numbers 6.1 (December 2019) while producing a document in the proprietary file format. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 13).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 12).
The default template for new documents in Numbers is a blank spreadsheet, which is accessible by virtue of being blank.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
At this time, it is not possible to manually indicate the natural language for specific cells or blocks of cells in Numbers ‘09. As well, it is not possible to change the natural language of the document itself from the default language. [Tested: September 29th, 2010]
Editor’s note: In later versions of Numbers, users can set the document language for a spreadsheet within a workbook. For detailed instructions, see how to format a spreadsheet for another language in Numbers on Mac.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
At this time, Numbers ’09 does not offer a mechanism which enables the user to add alternative text descriptions to images or objects. [Tested: September 28, 2010]
Editor’s note: In later versions of Numbers, users can add alt text for images and graphical objects. To add alt text descriptions, follow these steps:
For detailed instructions, see how to add an image description on the Numbers User Guide for Mac.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
At this time (December 2019), Numbers does not offer named styles that can be applied to format and distinguish specific cells from the rest of your data.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Table styles are useful for applying consistent formatting to tables. In Numbers, each template has one or more table style that formats various characteristics of your tables. A table style predefines the table background, the characteristics of cell borders, header rows and columns, footer rows, and the background and text attributes of cells. Table styles are useful for distinguishing different types of information in your spreadsheet.
Note: While the visual characteristics may not necessarily be helpful for accessibility, identifying the header rows and columns and pre-formatting text characteristics for these columns is helpful.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
At this time (December 2019), Numbers does not provide a mechanism for applying names to specific data ranges. Rather, it advises authors that they can use existing header row and column names to address cells within a table. While this may be useful when defining formulas, it does not provide the necessary support for accessibility.
Editor’s note: To see header names more clearly, be sure to make the following change under preferences:
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Spreadsheet applications support various types of charts, which can be used to display your spreadsheet data in meaningful ways for your audience. It is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help to correctly interpret the information.
While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid “floating” elements (other than charts) such as floating images, objects, tables or text boxes.
Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
At this time (December 2019), Numbers does not offer a mechanism to track changes in its documents.
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the steps noted in Technique 3.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. If you are using this cell for a label or data, you can attach a comment note to the cell containing navigational instructions.
At this time (December 2019), Numbers does not offer an accessibility checking mechanism to identify potential accessibility errors prior to publishing.
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 1.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Numbers more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: iWork Numbers ’09 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Calc provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, Calc does not include an accessibility checking feature, which is a more advanced accessibility feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using Calc to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Calc is ODF Spreadsheet (ODS). In addition, Calc offers many other spreadsheet processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Calc (ver. 3.2.1, Windows XP, Aug. 2010 and Apache OpenOffice 4.1.7) while creating an ODT document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11). Calc’s default template for new documents is a blank spreadsheet, which is accessible by virtue of being blank. It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in Calc. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
As you begin adding content, your spreadsheet will require structuring to bring meaning to the data, make it easier to navigate, and help assistive technologies read it accurately. One of the easiest ways to do this is to ensure that you properly format the cells.
You should make use of the named styles that are included with the office application (e.g., “Heading”, “Result”, etc.) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Named styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names). For more information on formatting using named styles, see Technique 9.
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ. Formatting header and result cells brings order to the spreadsheet and makes it easier for users to navigate effectively. For example, you can format header rows and columns using “Heading” styles to apply bolded, enlarged, and italicized text (among other characteristics). You may also want to format cells containing results of calculations to appear bold and underlined to help distinguish them from the rest of your data.
Ensure your cells are formatted to properly represent your data, including number and text attributes.
Label ranges help to logically define the contents of specific cells as either labels or data. This is useful for navigational purposes, allowing users to jump between ranges of data and navigate within each range. This is also useful for calculations, as you may reference an entire label range within an equation.
Naming the different data ranges within your spreadsheet makes it easier to navigate through the document and find specific information. By associating a meaningful name to a data range, you will be enhancing the readability of your document. These named ranges can be referenced in multiple locations of your document and within calculations and equations.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
Calc has an “Insert table” feature.
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While cell formatting is the most common method of structuring documents, other content structuring features should be used where appropriate:
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Avoid “floating” elements (other than charts) such as floating images, objects, tables or text boxes. Similarly, avoid placing drawing objects directly into the document (e.g., as borders, to create a diagram). Instead, create borders with page layout tools and insert complete graphical objects.
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Provide a general description of the spreadsheet contents and instructions on how to navigate the data effectively. The best way to do this is to make a cell at the beginning of the data (e.g., A1) with this information. It will be the first cell accessed by assistive technologies. If you are using this cell for a label or data, you can attach a comment note to the cell containing navigational instructions.
At this time, Calc does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: September 30th, 2010]
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Calc accessible, documentation is provided in Calc’s Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: OpenOffice Calc (v3.2) by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Google Slides lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: a separate document title field and the ability to indicate headings for rows and columns. With this in mind, be cautious of templates available in the Google Slides template gallery and be sure that they comply the techniques discussed here.
While there is no accessibility checking feature built into Google Slides, you can install a third-party add-on called Grackle Slides. Grackle is a third-party plug-in that includes an accessibility checker along with other features that enhance accessibility on Grackle Slides (see Technique 11). Due to the nature of Google Slides, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like a HTML or PDF file.
You should use these techniques when you are using Google Slides to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
Google Slides does not have a default file format, as it is a web-based authoring tool.
Google Slides offers a number of presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12.
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. Files are easily saved as various file formats (see Technique 12).
Editor’s note: Since the content of this page has been heavily updated from the original article (Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google docs: Presentations), the usual editor’s notes that flag new content will be omitted. The application-specific steps and screenshots were updated in December 2019.
At this time (December 2019), Google Slides lacks support for accessibility features such as table headings.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
Google Slides’s default template for new documents is a blank presentation. The basic installation also includes a wide variety of templates for business presentations. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own templates from scratch in Google Slides. As well, you can edit and modify the existing templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
You can share your accessible template, but it may be more useful to share the file as copy that other users can add to their Google Drive.
For more information, see the resources below:
At this time, Google Slides does not offer an explicit language selection mechanism to indicate the natural language of your document or changes in natural language at any point within the content. Google Slides defaults the natural language to the language selected for your Google Account. When exporting to other document formats, there is no guarantee that the natural language of your Google Account will be indicated as the natural language of your document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Google Slides does not offer “True Headings” or “Named Styles”.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout.
Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because they technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order elements were placed.
Google Slides is packaged with master slides available for your use. If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used.
Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout.
If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
One way around this is to format a slide, ensuring its accessibility, and then create duplicates of that slide within your presentation. You can then edit the content of the duplicate slides, while ensuring that its layout meets accessibility requirements. In this way, the original slide acts as design template for the slides derived from it.
Note: If you would like to include a unique slide layout for a single slide, see Google: Learn how to apply a theme to only one slide.
For more details on how to customize your presentation, see Google: Change the theme, background, or layout in Google Slides.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors.
However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
Google Slides offers a mechanism for adding alternative text to images and objects where it can be readily accessed by screen reader users. While you can add alt text, you will need to ensure that you provide the longer descriptions in the body of the document, near the images and objects. While this solution is not optimal for screen reader users and will complicate your own accessibility testing, it is necessary until long descriptions are supported.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
At this time (December 2019), Google Slides does not offer a mechanism that allows you to select and indicate headings for rows and columns. Since it is not possible to create complex tables in Google Slides that are accessible, avoid creating complex tables since table headers cannot be designated.
If you use the Grackle Slides add-on, tables can be given structure and table headings can be indicated. While these fixes won’t be useful for making tables more accessible in Google Slides, it does allow you to export the document into another format with appropriate table tags intact. For more on Grackle Slides, see Technique 11.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
At this time (December 2019), Google Slides makes use of a single document name. Within Google Slides, this serves well as a title, but when exporting to ODT, the document name is used to form the file name, and the ODT “Title” properties field is left blank, or it lists the title used in the first slide of the presentation.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
In Google Slides, you can insert data charts linked to an existing Google Sheet file (see Google Help: Link a chart or table to Google Slides for instructions).
Charts can be used to display data in meaningful ways for your audience. It is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
In Google Slides, you can present slides with automatic captions that displays the speaker’s words in real time at the bottom of the screen.
Note: This feature is only available on Chrome devices in U.S. English. Also, captions are not stored.
For more details on enabling live automatic captions when presenting, see Google: Present slides with captions.
At this time (December 2019), Google Slides does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. However, a third-party add-on called Grackle Sheets can be used to check the accessibility of your workbook (see below).
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
Warning: Automated accessibility checkers cannot be trusted to check for all accessibility concerns, so be sure to review the recommended techniques in this document.
What is Grackle Slides? Grackle Slides is a third-party add-on that runs on spreadsheets created in Google Sheets. It helps with checking and improving the digital accessibility of your document. Due to the nature of Google Sheets, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like an HTML file.
How does it work? After Grackle is launched, It scans the current spreadsheet for accessibility issues and identifies and locates errors. Feedback appears in a sidebar that is docked on right-side of the screen. By exploring the sidebar, you can immediately learn about accessibility issues and find and fix the detected errors by interacting with the Grackle sidebar. Due to the nature of Google Slides, some accessibility features, such as tables, are only fully accessible when exporting the document to another format, like a HTML or PDF file.
Note: Grackle’s accessibility checker is free to use; however, the ability to export and produce accessible HTML spreadsheets, and so on, is only free for the first 30 days (as of December 2019).
At the time of testing, creating tagged PDFs in Grackle Slides is still in beta testing. While there are some export limitations, Grackle Slides performs accessibility checks that are valuable.
Grackle Slides performs the following 16 accessibility checks:
Grackle Slides can be installed from the Add-ons menu of a Google Slides document.
Grackle Sheets is simple to launch and is accessed from the Add-ons menu.
When testing the Grackle Slides, we found that the plugin would sometimes error out. Grackle Slides would indicate that the checks are complete, but the remediation functionality in the Grackle sidebar is not responsive.
Steps you can take when the Grackle Slide plugin does not function correctly:
Note: After exporting to PowerPoint, you can run Microsoft’s built-in accessibility checker.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for Google Slides:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Google Slides more accessible to users, documentation is provided in online articles and Help forums:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Google docs: Presentation by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), PowerPoint provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. In addition, PowerPoint includes an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using PowerPoint to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for PowerPoint is Office Open XML (PPTX).
In addition, PowerPoint offers many other presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 (ver. 14.0.4760.1000, Windows XP, Sept. 2010) while creating a PPTX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11, below).
PowerPoint’s default template for new documents is a blank presentation. If you are connected to the internet, you can access a variety of blank business presentation templates through Office.com. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in PowerPoint. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
PowerPoint does not provide “True Headings” or “Named Styles” as does Word.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout.
Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because these technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order in which elements were placed.
If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used.
Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout.
If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors.
However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
Editor’s note: For more details about adding alternative text to your PowerPoint slides, including how to toggle automatic alt text, see how to add alt text.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Unique slide titles aid navigation for non-visual users.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and colour, rather than colour alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriately labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change document details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid colour for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colours in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Colour should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where colour might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the colour or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or colour combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1, above), PowerPoint offers an “Accessibility Checker” to review your document against a set of possible issues that users with disabilities may experience in your file.
To learn more about the Accessibility Checker and the rules it uses to identify and classify accessibility issues in your document, visit the PowerPoint help section (see Accessibility Help, below). Use the search term “accessibility checker rules” in the help search box.
In order to get further indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 (above).
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for PowerPoint 2007:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using PowerPoint more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project. This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 17, 2011), as long as images are avoided, PowerPoint for Mac provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, PowerPoint 2008 for Mac does not include an accessibility checking feature.
Editor’s note: Later versions of PowerPoint for Mac include an accessibility checking feature. For more information, please see the following:
You should use these techniques when you are using PowerPoint for Mac to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for PowerPoint for Mac is Office Open XML (PPTX).
In addition, PowerPoint for Mac offers many other presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
*Right-click: To right-click with the keyboard, select the object using the Shift+Arrow keys and then press either (1) the “Right-Click” key (some keyboard have this to the right of the spacebar) or Shift+F10.
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac (ver. 12.0 (071130), Mac OS X, Jan. 2011) and Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac (version 16.16.17) while creating a PPTX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results. If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11, below).
PowerPoint for Mac’s default template for new documents is a blank presentation. If you are connected to the internet, you can access a variety of blank business presentation templates through Office.com. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in PowerPoint for Mac. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
PowerPoint does not provide “True Headings” or “Named Styles” as does Word.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout.
Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because these technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order elements were placed.
If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used.
Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout.
If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors.
However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
At this time, it is not possible to modify pre-formatted list styles or to create your own list styles. [Tested: January 26, 2011]
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. However, because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
At this time, PowerPoint 2008 for Mac does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: January 17, 2011]
In order to get some indication of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Editor’s note: In later versions of PowerPoint for Mac, users can check the accessibility of their presentations. For more information, see how to use the accessibility checker in PowerPoint.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
Note: Before saving in other formats, you may want to run the Compatibility Report feature by selecting Compatibility Report… from the Save As dialog. This checks the compatibility of your existing document with the format you have selected save your document as. The results of this check are revealed in the Compatibility Report dialog, where you have explanations of errors and options to fix them. To run this check at any time, go to menu item: View > Toolbox, Compatibility Report.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results by the IDRC.
The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for PowerPoint for Mac:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using PowerPoint for Mac more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Date of Version on the ADOD source page: 10 Feb 2011
Copyright © 2011 Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University
This material may be reproduced and distributed in print or electronic format only as long as:
(a) the reproduction is offered at no cost to the recipients; and
(b) the reproduction must preserve the “Version” section; and
(c) the reproduction must preserve the “Acknowledgments” section; and
(d) the reproduction must preserve this copyright notice.
Source: Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project: PowerPoint 2008 for Mac by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 10, 2011), PowerPoint 2007 provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, PowerPoint 2007 does not include an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using PowerPoint 2007 to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for PowerPoint 2007 is Office Open XML (PPTX).
In addition, PowerPoint 2007 offers many other presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12 (below):
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 (ver. 12.0.6535.5002, Windows 7, Jan. 2011) while creating a PPTX document. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12, below).
This document is provided for information purposes only and is neither a recommendation nor a guarantee of results. If errors are found, please report them to: adod-comments@idrc.ocad.ca.
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11, below).
PowerPoint 2007’s default template for new documents is a blank presentation. If you are connected to the internet, you can access a variety of blank business presentation templates through Office.com. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank.
It is possible to create your own accessible templates from scratch in PowerPoint 2007. As well, you can edit and modify the existing prepackaged templates, ensuring their accessibility as you do so and saving them as a new template.
Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
PowerPoint 2007 does not provide “True Headings” or “Named Styles” as does Word 2007.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout.
Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order elements were placed.
If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used.
Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout.
If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors.
However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. However, because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, you should consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to display data in meaningful ways for your audience. It is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
At this time, Powerpoint 2007 does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: January 10th, 2011]
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
Another option is to save the document into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 (above).
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for PowerPoint 2007:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using PowerPoint 2007 more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: PowerPoint 2007 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (September 30, 2010), Keynote ’09 lacks several features that enable accessible office document authoring, most notably: the ability to add alternative text to images and objects, indicating natural language, quick styles or named styles, and change tracking. As a result, some of the other features that might otherwise support accessibility, such as its extensive templates are not as effective. In addition, Keynote ‘09 does not include an accessibility checking feature, which is a more advanced accessibility feature.
Editor’s note: In later versions of Keynote, users can add alt text to images and objects. Apple has added significant accessibility improvements to its iWork applications, but an accessibility checker is not a feature yet.
You should use these techniques when you are using Keynote ’09 to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Keynote ‘09 is the native iWork format. In addition, Keynote ‘09 offers many other presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users. The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using iWork Keynote ‘09 (ver.5.0.3(791), Mac OS X, Sept. 2010) and Keynote, version 9.1 (December 2019) while producing a document in the proprietary file format. Files are also easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting. Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11). The default template for new documents in Keynote ‘09 is a blank presentation. If you are connected to the internet, you can access a variety of blank business presentation templates. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank. As well, you may create your own templates.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g. that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
At this time, it is not possible to manually indicate the natural language for specific slides or sections of text in Keynote ‘09. As well, it is not possible to change the natural language of the document itself from the default language. [Tested: September 30th, 2010]
Editor’s note: In later versions of Keynote, users are able to set a presentation’s language.
For more details, see how to change a presentation’s language and formatting.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout. Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because they technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order elements were placed. Note: Each slide in Keynote ’09 is derived from a Master Slide (Technique 3.2) applying “true layouts” requires that you use Master Slides that are accessible and appropriately designed for your purposes.
If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used. Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout. If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors. However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
At this time, Keynote ’09 does not offer a mechanism which enables the user to add alternative text descriptions to images or objects. [Tested: September 28, 2010]
Editor’s note: For later versions of Keynote, users can add alternative text descriptions for images and objects.
For more details, see the section on how to add an image description on the Keynote User Guide for Mac.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns. Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern. In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
At this time, Keynote ’09 does not offer a mechanism to check for potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing. [Tested: September 30th, 2010] In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11 (above).
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results. The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for Keynote ‘09:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using Keynote ‘09 more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: iWork Keynote ’09 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), OpenOffice Impress provides a set of accessibility features that is sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital office documents. However, OpenOffice Impress does not include an accessibility checking feature.
You should use these techniques when you are using Impress to create documents that are:
If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these techniques will still be useful to you, but you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for Impress is ODF Presentation (ODP).
In addition, Impress offers many other presentation processor and web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility, but some information and/or instructions are available for the following formats in Technique 12:
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the office documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
The application-specific steps and screenshots in this document were created using OpenOffice Impress (ver. 3.2.1, Windows XP, Aug. 2010 and Apache OpenOffice 4.1.7)) while creating an ODT document. Files can also be easily saved as other file formats (see Technique 12).
All office documents start with a template, which can be as simple as a blank standard-sized page or as complex as a nearly complete document with text, graphics and other content. For example, a “Meeting Minutes” template might include headings for information relevant to a business meeting, such as “Actions” above a table with rows to denote time and columns for actions of the meeting.
Because templates provide the starting-point for so many documents, accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, you should check a sample document produced when the template is used (see Technique 11).
OpenOffice Impress’s default template for new documents is a blank presentation. The basic installation also includes blank business card and blank label templates. These are all accessible by virtue of being blank. As well, you may create your own templates.
Note: Only use these steps if you have an accessible template available (e.g., that you previously saved). Otherwise, simply open a new (blank) document.
In order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately, it is important to indicate the natural language of the document. If a different natural language is used for a paragraph or selected text, this also needs to be clearly indicated.
Instead of creating each slide in your presentation by starting from a blank slide, check whether there is a suitable built-in layout.
Note: The built-in layouts can be more accessible to users of assistive technologies because they technologies sometimes read the floating items on the slide in the order that they were placed on the slide. The built-in layouts have usually taken this into account (e.g., “Title” first followed by other items, left to right and from top to bottom). If you create slide layouts from scratch, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the order elements were placed.
You should make use of the quick styles that are included with the office application (e.g., pre-defined heading fonts and characters) before creating your own styles or using the character formatting tools directly. Quick styles help your readers understand why something was formatted in a given way, which is especially helpful when there are multiple reasons for the same formatting (e.g., it is common to use italics for emphasis, Latin terms and species names).
Note: While office application suites support headings in much the same way, the named styles often differ.
Impress provides quick styles for theme fonts, but applying these directly to text does not define the text as a heading or body font. To define the font for headings and body text, you need to apply these characteristics to the presentation theme.
Impress provides named styles for “Heading”, “Title”, etc., but not for strong and emphasis.
If a layout must be customized, it is recommended that Master Slides be used.
Every slide layout in a presentation is defined by its master slide. A master slide determines the formatting style for various elements of the slide layout. This includes font styles, character formatting, and the positioning of elements. Essentially, each master slide acts as a design template for the slide layout.
If you edit any aspect of the slide layout in the master slide, the change will affect all slides that were created based on it. For this reason, it is good practice to edit the master slide and use the slide layouts before building individual slides. It is essential that you create and use master slides that meet the accessibility requirements outlined in this document.
Many presentation applications create content composed almost exclusively of “floating” objects. This means that they avoid the transitions between in-line content and secondary “floating” objects (text boxes, images, etc.) that can cause accessibility issues in word processors.
However, when you are working with “floating” objects, it is important to remember that the way objects are positioned in two dimensions on the screen may be completely different from how the objects will be read by a screen reader or navigated using a keyboard. The order that content is navigated sequentially is called the “Tab Order” because often the “Tab” key is used to navigate from one “floating” object to the next.
To set the tab order
A useful aspect of presentation applications is the facility to add notes to slides, which can then be read by assistive technologies. You can use these slide notes to explain and expand on the contents of your slides in text format. Slide notes can be created as you build your presentation.
When using images or other graphical objects, such as charts and graphs, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to of each image. If an image is too complicated to concisely describe in the alternative text alone (artwork, flowcharts, etc.), provide a short text alternative and a longer description as well.
Alternatively, you can include the same information conveyed by the image within the body of the document, providing the images as an alternate to the text. In that case, you do not have to provide alternate text within the image.
To add alternative text to images
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When you create lists, it is important to format them as “real lists”. Otherwise, assistive technologies will interpret your list as a series of short separate paragraphs instead of a coherent list of related items.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns.
Note: Because columns can be a challenge for users of some assistive technologies, consider whether a column layout is really necessary.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
Charts can be used to make data more understandable for some audiences. However, it is important to ensure that your chart is as accessible as possible to all members of your audience. All basic accessibility considerations that are applied to the rest of your document must also be applied to your charts and the elements within your charts. For example, use shape and color, rather than color alone, to convey information. As well, some further steps should be taken to ensure that the contents are your chart are appropriate labeled to give users reference points that will help them to correctly interpret the information.
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to be printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Office applications do typically include accessibility features such as the ability to magnify documents and support for high contrast modes. However, because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted, above.
Transitions between slides and elements in each slide (e.g., bullets in a list flying onto the screen) can be distracting to users with disabilities. It can also cause assistive technologies to read the slide incorrectly. For these reasons, it is best to avoid transitions altogether.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
Hyperlink text in your document should be meaningful when read out of context. To be an effective navigation aid, the link text should describe the destination of the link.
Consider the experience of screen reader users: Generally, screen readers generate a list of links, and screen reader users navigate this list alphabetically. Hyperlink text such as “click here” or “more” is meaningless in this context.
In order to be useful to someone using a screen reader, ensure that hyperlink text is self-describing and meaningful on its own. To make the address of hyperlink clear when printing, you may wish to include the address in brackets following the descriptive text of the hyperlink.
It is important to consider accessibility before, during, and after presentations. Below is a helpful link with guidance on how to make presentations accessible to all:
At this time (December 2019), OpenOffice Impress does not offer a mechanism to identify potential accessibility errors in your document prior to publishing.
In order to get some indication of the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), then you may consider saving the file into HTML or PDF in order to perform an accessibility check in one of those formats, as described below.
If you wish to check the accessibility of your document or template (see Technique 1), one option is to save it into HTML format and use one of the web accessibility checkers available online. Such as:
If you saved your document in tagged PDF format, you can use the following tools and steps to evaluate the accessibility of the PDF document:
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In some cases, additional steps must be taken in order to ensure accessibility information is preserved when saving/exporting to formats other than the default.
PDF documents are not always accessible. Accessible PDF documents are often called “Tagged PDF” because they include “tags” that encode structural information required for accessibility. To evaluate the accessibility of your PDF document, see Technique 11.
Note: You must ensure this option is selected in the PDF Options window dialog box before using PDF icon on menu bar.
Disclaimer: This list is provided for information purposes only. It is not exhaustive and inclusion of an application or plug-in on the list does not constitute a recommendation or guarantee of results.
The following accessibility related plug-ins and support are available for OpenOffice Impress:
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using OpenOffice Impress more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help system:
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Substantial contributions have also been made to the project by AnySurfer, the City of Toronto, and OCAD University.
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: OpenOffice Impress by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing, Adobe InDesign CS6 (April 2013) and Adobe InDesign Creative Cloud 2019 (December 2019) provide a set of accessibility features that are sufficient to enable the production of accessible digital documents.
You should use the technique below when you are using InDesign to create documents that are:
Note: InDesign is best for print design, but there are also options of doing web and digital publishing. If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, the techniques below will be useful, but consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) because these are specifically designed to provide guidance for highly dynamic and/or interactive content.
The default file format for InDesign is (.indd).
In addition, InDesign offers many other web format saving options. Most of these have not been checked for accessibility.
We have tried to formulate these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless if they use a mouse. However, there are several instances where mouse-only language is used for clarity purposes . Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
Following these techniques will increase the accessibility of your documents, but it does not guarantee accessibility to any specific disability groups. In cases where more certainty is required, it is recommended that you test the documents with end users with disabilities, including screen reader users.
InDesign starts with a simple blank page that can be adjusted to any size. There are no build-in templates for InDesign. However, you can create your own templates from scratch or download already made templates from Adobe.
Templates provide the starting point for documents, so accessibility is critical. If you are unsure whether a template is accessible, check the document using Acrobat Pro. Export the file and use the Accessibility Checker in Acrobat Pro.
Editor’s note: Adobe InDesign CC users will see a different version of the dialog box with the same menu items.
Editor’s note: InDesign CC, users will see the following dialog box.
The language setting in InDesign will set language within the program only. This language setting in InDesign will not carry over to the exported PDF. Be sure to set the document language in Adobe Acrobat after exporting to PDF.
The artifact tag allows users to hide items on the page, such as page numbers or unimportant objects, when viewing the exported PDF file in Reflow view, which displays only tagged items. This is also useful when viewing PDF files on a mobile device or in other PDF readers.
There are two options to creating artifacts:
When using images or other graphical objects, such as graphs, shapes, and background, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey using the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image.
There are two options to add Alternative Text to images Option one uses the Object Export Options dialog box where the user select the images in the document individually and add the alternative text. Option two uses Structure panel that create attribute to individual images.
When you export the document, the alt text you’ve assigned will travel with the image.
or 
Any document that is longer than a few paragraphs require structure to make them more straightforward for readers to understand. Creating Paragraph styles will set the headings and style for the document. It will also help in creating a Table of Contents. The structural elements that indicate order and level provide a meaningful sequence to users of assistive technologies.
or in the top right corner for more options.
When using tables, it is important to ensure that they are clear and appropriately structured. This helps all users to better understand the information in the table and allows assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to provide context so that the information within the table can be conveyed in a meaningful way.
When creating accessible tables in InDesign, there are some things to keep in mind:
If you have created text with tabs. To convert the text to a table:
If you have a table that spans more than one page or spread, it’s important to ensure that table headers are repeated to facilitate understanding of the content.
Tagging items will help assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to locate the logical order of the assigned headings. Also, when exporting the document to a PDF, the tagging will automatically be embedded, therefore, the user does not need to apply tagging in Acrobat.
Note: This does not tag all content correctly. To correctly tag all content, you would have to assign the tags manually (see To Assign Tags Manually).
> Map Style to Tags…
Optional: to change the body of the table of contents to a different style than the header of the table of contents. Select entry style and change same style to another style.
Use Columns feature for placing text in columns instead of creating multiple text boxes.
Numbering the pages of your document helps those reading and editing your document effectively navigate and reference its content. For users of assistive technologies, it provides a valuable point of reference within the document.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
When formatting text, especially when the text is likely to printed, try to:
But can’t users just zoom in? Because printing is an important aspect of many workflows and changing font sizes directly will change documents details such the pagination, the layout of tables, etc., it is best practice to always format text for a reasonable degree of accessibility.
The visual presentation of text and images of text should have a contrast ration of at least 4.5:1. To help you determine the contrast, here are some examples on a white background:
Also, always use a single solid color for a text background rather than a pattern.
In order to determine whether the colors in your document have sufficient contrast, you can consult an online contrast checker, such as:
Color should not be used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element. In order to spot where color might be the only visual means of conveying information, you can create a screenshot of the document and then view it with online gray-scale converting tools, such as:
Editor’s note: GrayBit v2.0 is no longer available. However, multiple tools can be found online: Google Search: gray-scale conversion tool.
The instructions provided for understanding and operating content should not rely solely on sensory characteristics such as the color or shape of content elements. Here are two examples:
Before you use an image to control the presentation of text (e.g., to ensure a certain font or color combination), consider whether you can achieve the same result by styling “real text”. If this is not possible, as with logos containing stylized text, make sure to provide alternative text for the image following the techniques noted above.
By taking the time to design your content in a consistent way, it will be easier to access, navigate and interpret for all users:
To check for accessibility, first, the InDesign file must be exported to a PDF and viewed in Acrobat Pro.
Editor’s note: For detailed instructions, see our section on how to check accessibility using Adobe Acrobat Professional.
In Acrobat 10 Pro, there is a special accessibility Action Wizard for InDesign CS6 where the user can follow to make the file accessible.
Editor’s note: At the time of testing (December 2019), we were not able to download and use the Acrobat 10 Action Wizard. If you do already have the required application, see how to use the Action Wizard for InDesign for more details.
If you are interested in what features are provided to make using InDesign more accessible to users, documentation is provided in the Help button or the search bar.
Authors: Vellicia Christanto, Jan Richards
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Adobe InDesign CS6 by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (December 2019), Acrobat 11 Pro and Acrobat Pro DC enables the production of accessible digital documents. Both Acrobat 11 Pro and DC include an accessibility checking feature.
Note: While PDF accessibility has improved over the years, accessibility support for PDF by authoring tools, viewers, and assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) is not as widespread as for HTML documents.
We recommend considering HTML instead of or in addition to PDF where appropriate.
These techniques can help you to use Acrobat 11 Pro to create documents that are:
Note: If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). The WCAG working group has provided PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0.
The default file format for Acrobat 11 Pro and DC is Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). In addition, Acrobat 11 Pro offers several other word processor and web format saving options. These have not been checked for accessibility.
We have tried to write these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
In the Adobe Acrobat 11 Pro workflow, all PDF documents start with a source document created in an office document authoring application, such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. Because source documents provide the starting-point for the PDF documents, accessibility is very important.
Once you have completed the above steps, you are ready to convert your document to PDF using Adobe Acrobat 11 or Acrobat DC.
A batch conversion process is also available from the menu item: File > Create PDF > Batch Create Multiple Files.
If you created a PDF from a scanned document, then it will be inherently inaccessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. The document will be less useful because graphic representations of text cannot be selected, edited or searched.
In this case, it is necessary that you convert the scanned images of text to searchable content using Acrobat’s optical character recognition (OCR) feature before addressing the accessibility features of the document.
The “Make Accessible” Action Wizard can help you create accessible PDFs by leading you through the techniques in this guide (e.g., setting alternative text, setting document properties, etc.).
You can complete the wizard in its entirety by pressing Start or you can follow the the instructions below:
See also Creating Accessible PDF Documents in Adobe Acrobat by the National Center on Disability and Access to Education for a video walkthrough and handout on the “Make Accessible” Wizard.
The most basic requirement for a PDF document to be accessible is for it to be “tagged” with hidden labels (“tags”) that describe the structure of the document (e.g. that text should be interpreted as a header, paragraph, table cell, etc.). Screen readers can use these tags to convey the document’s information effectively to people with visual disabilities.
The other requirements for a PDF document to be accessible (e.g. alternate text, logical reading order, etc.) can only all apply once the document is tagged.
Note: If “Accessibility” is not visible under tools, go to menu item: View > Tools > Accessibility
If you have a large document, it may be more efficient to run a full check one page or a page range at a time.
Caution!: Actions taken using the TouchUp Reading Order tool and Order Panel cannot be undone and in some cases Acrobat may misinterpret your intentions. Remember to save your work frequently! If you frequently create PDF files you might consider using one of these accessible PDF support tools.
If tags are missing, then they must be added. When tags are present, they should still be checked for correctness and edited as needed.
The TouchUp Reading Order dialog box offers some basic document tag options. Acrobat’s Help text describes the tags as follows:
Not all tags are available using the TouchUp Reading order dialog window. Additional tags can be accessed from the Tags pane. See the Editing tags using the Tags pane section for more information.
There are additional tags that help define semantic and structural file elements in more detail. The Adobe Acrobat website categorizes and defines all standard tags as follows (some appear in the section above):
Heading and paragraph elements are paragraph-like, block-level elements that include specific level heading and generic paragraph (P) tags. A heading (H) element should appear as the first child of any higher-level division. Six levels of headings (H1 to H6) are available for applications that don’t hierarchically nest sections (See TouchUp Reading Order Tags section above for more).
Label and list elements are block-level elements used for structuring lists.
Special text elements identify text that isn’t used as a generic paragraph (P).
Table elements are special elements for structuring tables.
Inline-level elements identify a span of text that has specific formatting or behavior. They are differentiated from block-level elements. Inline-level elements may be contained in or contain block-level elements.
Similar to inline-level elements, special inline-level elements describe an inline portion of text that has special formatting or behavior.
Note: The automatic tagging feature may be sufficient on simple layouts, but it sometimes misinterprets the structure and reading order of complex page elements (e.g. closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, and tables without borders.). Therefore, use the automatic tagging feature as a starting point, and always manually check and edit the tags as explained below.
There are two ways of adding and editing tags in Adobe Acrobat. You can either do it through the TouchUp Reading Order dialog box, or using the Tags navigation pane.
Note: Some tag types are not available through the TouchUp Reading Order dialog box. For documents with complex layouts and elements, use it together with the Tags pane method described below.
When using images, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If the image is purely decorative, mark it as background.
The dialog box will automatically select all the objects that are tags as figure.
Setting up reading order will set up the way the device will read the file out loud to view and change reading order:
Sometimes it may not be clear by looking at content, what would be the most logical aural reading order. In these cases, it is recommended to preview the reading order.
One method for testing the reading order of your document is called “reflowing”, which temporarily presents it as a single column that is the width of the document pane. Only readable text appears in the reflow view.
If the tagged PDF does not reflow the way you want, it means that the content order or reading order of the PDF contains inconsistencies. If this is the case, in addition to correcting the reading order, it may also be helpful to edit the document tags.
Another way to test the aural accessibility of a document is to attempt to access the document with the screen readers that your readers will use (e.g., NVDA or JAWS on Windows, VoiceOver on Mac OS).
It is important to set up the PDF correctly in order for assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately.
It is possible to specify that no part of an accessible PDF is to be copied, printed, extracted, commented on, or edited. This can be accomplished by encrypting the document with password security. However, this could interfere with a screen reader’s ability to read the document, because screen readers must be able to copy or extract the document’s text in order to convert it to speech. In Acrobat 11 Pro, it is possible to maintain high-encryption-level security while at the same time providing the necessary access to assistive technologies.
A bookmark is a type of link with representative text in the Bookmarks panel in the navigation pane. Each bookmark goes to a different view or page in the document. In Acrobat 11 Pro, you can use bookmarks to mark a place in the PDF to which you want to return, or to jump to a destination in the PDF, another document, or a web page. There are several ways to create bookmarks.
Note: An Acrobat user can only add bookmarks to a document only if the security settings allow it.
Bookmarks can also be generated automatically from various types of structures that will be in your document if you have tagged it properly:
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project.
This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Substantial contributions have also been made to the project by AnySurfer, the City of Toronto, and OCAD University.
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Adobe Acrobat 11 Pro by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (March 2013), Acrobat 10 Pro (Windows) enables the production of accessible digital documents. Acrobat 10 Pro includes an accessibility checking feature.
Note: While PDF accessibility has improved over the years, accessibility support for PDF by authoring tools, viewers, and assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers) is not as widespread as for HTML documents. We recommend considering HTML instead of or in addition to PDF where appropriate.
These techniques can help you to use Acrobat 10 Pro to create documents that are:
Note: If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). The WCAG working group has provided PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0.
The default file format for Acrobat 10 Pro is Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). In addition, Acrobat 10 Pro offers several other word processor and web format saving options. These have not been checked for accessibility.
We have tried to write these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
In the Adobe Acrobat 10 Pro workflow, all PDF documents start with a source document created in an office document authoring application, such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. Because source documents provide the starting-point for the PDF documents, accessibility is very important.
Once you have completed the above steps, you are ready to convert your document to PDF using Adobe Acrobat 10.
Note: A batch conversion process is also available from the menu item: File > Create PDF > Batch Create Multiple Files
If you created a PDF from a scanned document, then it will be inherently inaccessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. The document will be less useful because graphic representations of text cannot be selected, edited or searched. In this case, it is necessary that you convert the scanned images of text to searchable content using Acrobat’s optical character recognition (OCR) feature before addressing the accessibility features of the document.
The most basic requirement for a PDF document to be accessible is for it to be “tagged” with hidden labels (“tags”) that describes the structure of the document (e.g. that text should be interpreted as a header, paragraph, table cell, etc.). Screen readers can then use these tags to convey the document’s information effectively to people with visual disabilities. The other requirements for a PDF document to be accessible (e.g. alternate text, logical reading order, etc.) can only all apply once the document is tagged.
Note: If “Accessibility” is not visible under tools, go to menu item: View > Tools > Accessibility
Running a Wizard Action Full Check when the file is first created would be ideal. This allows you to fix a few mistakes before the check up.
If tags are missing, then they must be added. When tags are present, they should still be checked for correctness. Acrobat’s Help text describes the tags as follows:
Note: The automatic tagging feature may be sufficient on simple layouts, but it sometimes misinterprets the structure and reading order of complex page elements (e.g. closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, and tables without borders.). Therefore, you should still manually check the tags as explained below.
Sometimes tagging can result in unexpected visual side effects, such as text disappearing behind background images. The following steps can be taken to correct such side-effects:
Note: The order of items in the Content panel tree indicates their layer order in the document. If item A is lower in the tree than item B, then if item A and B overlap in the document, A will be in front. Some people find this confusing, so a good way to remember how this works is to imagine putting documents in a pile and noting their names in a list. The last document placed will be on top of the pile, covering the others, and its name will be on the bottom of the list.
When using images, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If the image is purely decorative, mark it as background.
Artifacts are for objects that are not required to be read out loud (eg. background colours)
Setting up reading order will set up the way the device will read the file out loud to view and change reading order:
Sometimes it may not be clear by looking at content, what would be the most logical aural reading order. In these cases, it is recommended to preview the reading order.
One method for testing the reading order of your document is called “reflowing”, which temporarily presents it as a single column that is the width of the document pane. Only readable text appears in the reflow view. If the tagged PDF does not reflow the way you want, it means that the content order or reading order of the PDF contains inconsistencies. If this is the case, in addition to correcting the reading order, it may also be helpful to edit the document tags.
Another way to test the aural accessibility of a document is to attempt to access the document with the screen readers that your readers will use (e.g., NVDA or JAWS on Windows, VoiceOver on Mac OS).
It is important to set up the PDF correctly in order for assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately.
It is possible to specify that no part of an accessible PDF is to be copied, printed, extracted, commented on, or edited. This can be accomplished by encrypting the document with password security. However, this could interfere with a screen reader’s ability to read the document, because screen readers must be able to copy or extract the document’s text in order to convert it to speech. In Acrobat 10 Pro, it is possible to maintain high-encryption-level security while at the same time providing the necessary access to assistive technologies.
A bookmark is a type of link with representative text in the Bookmarks panel in the navigation pane. Each bookmark goes to a different view or page in the document. In Acrobat 10 Pro, you can use bookmarks to mark a place in the PDF to which you want to return, or to jump to a destination in the PDF, another document, or a web page. There are several ways to create bookmarks.
Note: An Acrobat user can only add bookmarks to a document only if the security settings allow it.
Bookmarks can also be generated automatically from various types of structure that will be in your document if you have tagged it properly:
Authors: Vellicia Christanto, Jan Richards
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project. This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Substantial contributions have also been made to the project by AnySurfer, the City of Toronto, and OCAD University.
Authoring Techniques for Accessible Documents: Acrobat Pro 10 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Adobe Acrobat 10 Pro by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
At the time of testing (January 19, 2011), Acrobat 9 Pro (Windows) enables the production of accessible digital office documents. Acrobat 9 Pro includes an accessibility checking feature.
Note: While PDF accessibility has improved over the years, accessibility support for PDF by authoring tools, viewers and assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers) is not as widespread as for HTML documents. We recommend considering HTML instead of or in addition to PDF where appropriate.
These techniques can help you to use Acrobat 9 Pro to create documents that are:
Note: If you are creating forms, web pages, applications, or other dynamic and/or interactive content, these you should also consult the W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). The WCAG working group has provided PDF Techniques for WCAG 2.0.
The default file format for Acrobat 9 Pro is Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Several other word processor and web format saving options are also offered, but these have not been checked for accessibility.
We have tried to write these techniques so that they are useful to all authors, regardless of whether they use a mouse. However, for clarity there are several instances where mouse-only language is used. Below are the mouse-only terms and their keyboard alternatives:
In the Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro workflow, all PDF documents start with a source document created in an office document authoring application, such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. Because source documents provide the starting-point for the PDF documents, accessibility is very important.
Once you have completed the above steps, you are ready to convert your document to PDF using Adobe Acrobat 9.
Note: A batch conversion process is also available from the menu item: File > Create PDF > Batch Create Multiple Files
If you created a PDF from a scanned document, then it will be inherently inaccessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies.The document will be less useful because graphic representations of text cannot be selected, edited or searched.
In this case, it is necessary that you convert the scanned images of text to searchable content using Acrobat’s optical character recognition (OCR) feature before addressing the accessibility features of the document.
The most basic requirement for a PDF document to be accessible is for it to be “tagged” with hidden labels (“tags”) that describes the structure of the document (e.g. that text should be interpreted as a header, paragraph, table cell, etc.). Screen readers can then use these tags to convey the document’s information effectively to people with visual disabilities.
The other requirements for a PDF document to be accessible (e.g. alternate text, logical reading order, etc.) can only all apply once the document is tagged.
Caution!: The “Quick Check” feature is not recommended because it misses some important accessibility issues. Always perform a “Full Check” instead.
If tags are missing, then they must be added. When tags are present, they should still be checked for correctness. Acrobat’s Help text describes the tags as follows:
Note: The automatic tagging feature may work for simple layouts, but it sometimes misinterprets the structure and reading order of complex page elements (e.g., closely spaced columns, irregular text alignment, and tables without borders). Therefore, you should still manually check the tags as explained below.
When using images, it is important to ensure that the information you intend to convey by the image is also conveyed to people who cannot see the image. This can be accomplished by adding concise alternative text to each image. If the image is purely decorative, mark it as background.
Tip: If you have a number of images arranged together, pick the main image and assign alternative text to it that describes the whole. Then, mark the secondary images as Background to be ignored (i.e. untag them)
Sometimes tagging can result in unexpected visual side effects, such as text disappearing behind background images. The following steps can be taken to correct such side-effects:
Note: The order of items in the Content panel tree indicates their layer order in the document. If item A is lower in the tree than item B, then if item A and B overlap in the document, A will be in front. Some people find this confusing, so a good way to remember how this works is to imagine putting documents in a pile and noting their names in a list. The last document placed will be on top of the pile, covering the others, and its name will be on the bottom of the list.
The order in which elements in a document are read by assistive software is determined by the reading order. Each section of page content appears as a separate highlighted region and is numbered according to its placement in the reading order. You can change the reading order of the highlighted regions without changing the actual appearance of the PDF. For example, by reordering highlighted regions on the page, you can make a figure and caption read at the specific point that they are referenced in the text without actually moving the elements on the page.
Sometimes it may not be clear by looking at content, what would be the most logical aural reading order. In these cases, it is recommended to preview the reading order.
Caution!: The “Read Out Loud” feature is not recommended for checking the aural order because it will provide an inaccurate .
One method for testing the reading order of your document is called “reflowing”, which temporarily presents it as a single column that is the width of the document pane. Only readable text appears in the reflow view.
If the tagged PDF does not reflow the way you want, it means that the content order or reading order of the PDF contains inconsistencies. If this is the case, in addition to correcting the reading order, it may also be helpful to edit the document tags.
Another way to test the aural accessibility of a document is to attempt to access the document with the screen readers that your readers will use (e.g. NVDA or JAWS on Windows, VoiceOver on Mac OS).
It is important to set up the PDF correctly in order for assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers) to be able to present your document accurately.
In case the document is ever converted into HTML, it should be given a descriptive and meaningful title.
It is possible to specify that no part of an accessible PDF is to be copied, printed, extracted, commented on, or edited. This can be accomplished by encrypting the document with password security. However, this could interfere with a screen reader’s ability to read the document, because screen readers must be able to copy or extract the document’s text in order to convert it to speech. In Acrobat 9 Pro, it is possible to maintain high-encryption-level security while at the same time providing the necessary access to assistive technologies.
A bookmark is a type of link with representative text in the Bookmarks panel in the navigation pane. Each bookmark goes to a different view or page in the document. In Acrobat 9 Pro, you can use bookmarks to mark a place in the PDF to which you want to return, or to jump to a destination in the PDF, another document, or a web page.
Note: An Acrobat user can only add bookmarks to a document only if the security settings allow it.
Authors: Jan Richards, Sabrina Ruplall
This document was produced as part of the Accessible Digital Office Document (ADOD) Project (http://inclusivedesign.ca/accessible-office-documents). This project has been developed by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University as part of an EnAbling Change Partnership project with the Government of Ontario and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
Substantial contributions have also been made to the project by AnySurfer, the City of Toronto, and OCAD University.Authoring Techniques for Accessible Documents: Acrobat Pro 9 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Source: Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) used under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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