పుస్తకం ముద్రించండిపుస్తకం ముద్రించండి

2.1 Accessible Document Creation

సైటు: Justwrite
కోర్సు: Designing and Publishing Accessible E-Content
పుస్తకం: 2.1 Accessible Document Creation
ముద్రించినది: Visiteur anonyme
తేదీ: బుధవారం, 17 డిసెంబర్ 2025, 11:20 PM

విషయసూచిక

Introduction

This Book is having 9 pages and each page describes information with appropriate screenshots wherever required. You can navigate and access each page by clicking on Next button below or from the Table of Contents block on the right side of the page.

The information provided here refers to MS Office latest Versions.

For OpenOffice Writer and LibreOffice Writer refer the information from Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents: OpenOffice Writer (v3.4) and LibreOffice Writer (v4.0.4.2)(Link Opens in New window) by the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC)

If you want to check accessibility features of Google docs you can refer to the article Accessibility for Docs editors (link opens in new window)

More links referring to creation of accessible MS Office documents in older versions like Office 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2013 are given in References page.



Specify Language, title and author details

To enable a document an assistive technology friendly document you must provide document title and author name along with document language specification. Usually in documents properties you can add these details. (In Mac) And access Language option from Tools menu (In Mac) to change the document language. If some part or section or a paragraph of the document is in any other language than specified, it is needs to be specified and clearly stated. The selected document language is also used by the spelling and grammar checker of the application . 


Accessible documents-Benefit for all

When you create accessible documents, that are easier to see and understand, those documents will benefit everyone.

Pay attention to text, text colour and other formatting options you choose. Use simple, familiar Sans serif fonts (like Arial) are easier to read than serif fonts (like Times New Roman).

*A serif is a little decorative line that is found on letters in some fonts like Times New Roman.

Using standard fonts with clear spacing and easily recognized upper and lower case characters makes the document easier to read. All caps text in large amounts will be difficult to read.

A sufficient amount of contrast also important to create accessible document. Using a pattern background for visual appearance makes document difficult to read and understand for all.

Always use a single solid colour for a text background. To check the contrast and the colours used in your document, you can visit an online contrast checker like WebAIM (link opens in new window)s Contrast Checker or Accessible web contrast checker (link opens in new window).
Clear, short sentences are easy to read. If acronyms, abbreviations are used they must be clearly defined. Avoid making the document cluttered with too many different colours, fonts and images. If the headings need to be repeated maintain consistency.

Add hyperlink to selected text as a meaningful, self-describing text. When the text is read out the context should be clear. Also the link text should describe the destination of the link(whether link opens in new window or as a pop up etc.).  Avoid link text as "Click here", "read more", "Click me".

To navigate easily screen reader users can arrange the hyperlinks of the document in alphabetical order. When you use words like "Click here", "read more", "Click me" they are not meaningful.




Use Headings

A well structured document with appropriate headings is always easier to understand.

To make a document well structured you have to use default headings styles rather than just providing bold, coloured, underlined, enlarged, or centred text.

While using Headings make sure you use logical sequence as Heading 2 comes under Heading 1.

Headings help to order and arrange the text / paragraphs in logical levels that provide a meaningful sequence to assistive technologies users.


Using templates

While using MS Office to create a document, usually it starts with a blank template. As they are blank they are accessible. You have an option to choose a template too. When you use a template and edit that template to design as per the requirements, it's always a good idea to check for accessibility using built in accessibility checker. 


Adding accessible Visual elements

Adding visuals like shapes, images, graphs etc. definitely makes the document more interesting but you have to make sure that the information conveyed through these visuals are reaching everyone.

While adding any graphic/image or a shape it is important to make sure that it is wrapped in-line with text. Otherwise the reading order for screen reader might be difficult, as the object might be floating and it is confusing.

Also pay attention to colour and contrast as prescribed. While adding charts make sure that the content of the chart is appropriately labelled. Also for bar charts it is recommended to apply different texture along with different colour to differentiate the bars.

Always use tables for tabular information. Avoid formatting text to look like tables using tab key or space bar.  Avoid nested tables. Give clear table header.

It is a good practice to provide summary of the essential table contents. When you describe tables in its descriptions, give the table’s purpose and the way it is organized (For example “A sample student details sheet with separate columns for the  name, Batch and Year of admission”).

* Better use predefined colours while formatting charts and tables

Alt text for visuals

Creating accessible Images

When images or other graphical elements like charts and graphs are used in a document, they should be conveyed to people who use assistive technologies too!  In other words it is important to make sure that the information you are trying to convey should reach everyone including who cannot see the image. 

This is possible when you add Alt text (alternative text) to visuals in a document.

Steps to add Alt text:-

  1. Right click on the image
  2. Select Edit Alt text option from context menu
  3. Enter the description of the image or mark it as decorative image in the text box that appears on right hand side of the Word application.
  4. Below is the video explaining the same


Observe the video below and also observe though the office version is different, the process to add Alt text is similar.


Above video is from Youtube channel Self-paced Access MOOC, and is licensed under




Tips to provide Alt text

While writing alternative text for a visual, imagine you are explaining the visual to a person who is blind folded or you try imagining the image closing your eyes listening to the description you give.

  • A single sentence is ideal as Alt text, but no more than two sentences should be used.
  • Try to provide the information that the image is conveying
    • If the image is for decorative purpose, make sure you tick the box - Mark as Decorative
  • If you are forced to use an image with text, better include all the text in the alternative text option
  • Always test document with Accessibility checker and ask your peers to evaluate too using any assistive technology like screen reader

Accessible PDF documents

It is very usual that you use a MS Word application to create PDF documents by exporting/saving the document as PDF. While saving / exporting as PDF you must take care to preserve the accessibility information of the document.

An accessible PDF document is called Tagged PDF. Because while exporting/saving as PDF you have to include tags. Tags help to store the information required to preserve accessibility of the document.

Steps to follow to include tags while saving/exporting as PDF from MS Word:-

  1. Click on Save as and choose type as PDF
  2. Click on Options button
  3. Enable Document structure tags for accessibility checkbox by ticking it
  4. Click OK and Save as PDF

Accessible Power Point

Power Point application also provides many built in templates. It is a good idea to use these templates as most of them are accessible templates.

Following all the measures to ensure accessibility in the slide like fonts, colours, descriptive alt text, meaningful hyperlinks and styles you use in your your slides, always pay attention to slide objects order. Slide contents can be read in the order that you intend to. Check this with Accessibility Checker  and do corrections if required.

Add alt texts to all visuals you use. This will help screen reader users to listen to what the image is all about.

Always use Accessibility Checker to see and correct accessibility issues.

References


  1. Accessible Power Point(link opens in new Window)
  2. Accessible Slide creation (link opens in new Window)
  3. Making Documents Accessible (link opens in new Window)
  4. Accessible Excel spreadsheets (link opens in new Window)
  5. Accessible PDF format (link opens in new Window)
  6. Creating accessible MS Word 2013 docs (link opens in new Window)
  7. Creating accessible MS Word 2011 Docs in Mac(link opens in new Window) 
  8. Creating accessible MS Word 2010 Docs(link opens in new Window) 
  9. Creating accessible MS Word 2008 Docs in Mac(link opens in new Window) 
  10. Creating accessible MS Word 2007 Docs(link opens in new Window) 
  11. Creating accessible MS Word 2003 Docs(link opens in new Window) 
  12. Google Docs accessibility (2011) (Link Opens in new window)
  13. WebAIM "How to Write Appropriate alt Text" (Link Opens in new window)

  14. Customizing the Display of Information(Link Opens in new window)

  16.  (Link Opens in new window)