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This topic gives you step-by-step instructions and best practices on how to make your Word documents accessible and unlock your content to everyone, including people with disabilities. Word has many features built-in that help people with different abilities to read and author documents. In this topic, you learn, for example, how to work with the Accessibility Checker to tackle accessibility issues while you're writing your document.
You'll also learn how to add alt texts to images so that people using screen readers are able to listen to what the image is all about. You can also learn about how to use fonts, colors, and styles to maximize the inclusiveness of your Word documents before sharing them with others.
Best practices for making Word documents accessible. Check accessibility while you work in Word. Avoid using tables. Use built-in headings and styles. Create paragraph banners.
Add alt text to visuals. Add accessible hyperlink text and ScreenTips. Use accessible font format and color. Create accessible lists. Adjust space between sentences and paragraphs. Test accessibility with Immersive Reader. The following table includes key best practices for creating Word documents that are accessible to people with disabilities. Avoid common accessibility issues such as missing alternative text alt text and low contrast colors.
Use the Accessibility Checker. If you have to use tables, use a simple table structure for data only, and specify column header information. To ensure that tables don't contain split cells, merged cells, or nested tables, use the Accessibility Checker. Screen readers keep track of their location in a table by counting table cells.
Blank cells in a table could also mislead someone using a screen reader into thinking that there is nothing more in the table. Use table headers. To preserve tab order and to make it easier for screen readers to read your documents, use a logical heading order and the built-in formatting tools in Word. To find missing alt text, use the Accessibility Checker. To determine whether hyperlink text makes sense as standalone information and whether it gives readers accurate information about the destination target, visually scan your document.
Add hyperlink text and ScreenTips. People who are blind, have low vision, or are colorblind might miss out on the meaning conveyed by particular colors. Use accessible font format. To find insufficient color contrast, use the Accessibility Checker. If your document has a high level of contrast between text and background, more people can see and use the content. Use accessible font color. Top of Page.
The Accessibility Checker is a tool that reviews your content and flags accessibility issues it comes across. It explains why each issue might be a potential problem for someone with a disability.
The Accessibility Checker also suggests how you can resolve the issues that appear. In Word, the Accessibility Checker runs automatically in the background when you're creating a document. If the Accessibility Checker detects accessibility issues, you will get a reminder in the status bar. The Accessibility pane opens, and you can now review and fix accessibility issues.
For more info, go to Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker and Video: Check the accessibility of your document. Tip: Use the Accessibility Reminder add-in for Office to notify authors and contributors of accessibility issues in their documents. With the add-in, you can quickly add reminder comments that spread awareness of accessibility issues and encourage the use of the Accessibility Checker. For more info, go to Use the Accessibility Reminder to notify authors of accessibility issues.
In general, avoid tables if possible and present the data another way, like paragraphs with headings and banners. Tables with fixed width might prove difficult to read for people who use Magnifier, because such tables force the content to a specific size. This makes the font very small, which forces Magnifier users to scroll horizontally, especially on mobile devices.
If you have to use tables, use the following guidelines to make sure your table is as accessible as possible:. If you have hyperlinks in your table, edit the link texts, so they make sense and don't break mid-sentence. Make sure the document is easily read with Magnifier. Use a simple table structure for data only and specify column header information. Screen readers also use header information to identify rows and columns.
For step-by-step instructions on how to add a header row to a table, go to Create accessible tables in Word. Headings are meant to be scanned, both visually and with assistive technology. Ideally, headings explain what a document section is about. Use the built-in heading styles and create descriptive heading texts to make it easier for screen reader users to determine the structure of the document and navigate the headings.
Organize headings in the prescribed logical order and do not skip heading levels. Organize the information in your document into small chunks. Ideally, each heading would include only a few paragraphs. For the step-by-step instructions on how to use the headings and styles, go to Improve accessibility with heading styles. In addition to using headings to organize the content in your document, you can also create paragraph banners.
In a paragraph banner, the background color block extends across the width of the document and highlights the text within the banner. This is a great alternative to tables to organize and separate content. For instructions on how to create paragraph banners, go to Apply shading to words or paragraphs.
Visual content includes pictures, SmartArt graphics, shapes, groups, charts, embedded objects, ink, and videos. In alt text, briefly describe the image and mention its intent. Avoid using text in images as the sole method of conveying important information. If you must use an image with text in it, repeat that text in the document. In alt text, briefly describe the image and mention the existence of the text and its intent. Tip: To write a good alt text, make sure to convey the content and the purpose of the image in a concise and unambiguous manner.
Do not repeat the surrounding textual content as alt text or use phrases referring to images, such as, "a graphic of" or "an image of. For the step-by-step instructions on how to add alt text, go to Add alternative text to a shape, picture, chart, SmartArt graphic, or other object. For audio and video content, in addition to alt text, include closed captioning for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Instead of grouping objects in a diagram, flatten the diagram into a picture and add alt text to the picture. If you group the objects, the child objects are still in the tab order with groups. People who use screen readers sometimes scan a list of links.
Links should convey clear and accurate information about the destination. For example, avoid using link texts such as "Click here," "See this page," Go here," or "Learn more. You can also add ScreenTips that appear when your cursor hovers over text or images that include a hyperlink. For example, this hyperlink text matches the title on the destination page: Create more with Microsoft templates.
For the step-by-step instructions on how to create accessible hyperlinks and ScreenTips, go to Create accessible links in Word and Create or edit a hyperlink. An accessible font doesn't exclude or slow down the reading speed of anyone reading a document, including people with low vision or reading disability or people who are blind. The right font improves the legibility and readability of the document.
For instructions on how to change the default font, go to Change the default font in Word. To reduce the reading load, select familiar sans serif fonts such as Arial or Calibri.
Avoid using all capital letters and excessive italics or underlines. A person with a vision disability might miss out on the meaning conveyed by particular colors.
Add shapes if color is used to indicate status. Note: These resources provide other suggestions: usability. The text in your document should be readable in a high contrast mode. For example, use bright colors or high-contrast color schemes on opposite ends of the color spectrum. White and black schemes make it easier for people who are colorblind to distinguish text and shapes. To ensure that text displays well in a high contrast mode, use the Automatic setting for font colors.
For instructions on how to change the font color in Word, go to Change the font color. Use the Accessibility Checker to analyze the document and find insufficient color contrast. The tool now checks the documents for text color against page color, table cell backgrounds, highlight, textbox fill color, paragraph shading, shape and SmartArt fills, headers and footers, and links.
Use the Colour Contrast Analyser , a free app that analyzes colors and contrast, and displays results almost immediately. To make it easier for screen readers to read your document, organize the information in your document into small chunks such as bulleted or numbered lists. Design lists so that you do not need to add a plain paragraph without a bullet or number to the middle of a list.
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