Accessibility for users of screen readers or magnifiers
Essential guidelines for screen readers, magnifiers, Word, PDF, and meaningful links.
All of the top 10 readability tips will increase the overall accessibility of your documents. You must also take into account people who may use screen readers or magnifiers.
Document Guidelines
Word
- Always mark sections with Heading styles
- Use the list for bullets
- Mark first row of tables as header
- Indicate Alternative Text for images
- Do not place text in text boxes or tables for borders
- Start from an accessible Word document
- Use Save as PDF (don't print)
- Convert Headings to PDF bookmarks
- Add title to document info
PowerPoint
- Use template layouts
- Every slide must have a title (can be hidden)
- Use tables for complex relationships
- All images must have Alternative text
- Save PowerPoint as PDF for SmartArt
Accessibility Checker
Use the Accessibility Checker
Available in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to get detailed reports on your document's accessibility issues.
Alternative to slides
Slides are primarily a visual medium. Providing a structured handout with an outline of the key points and references can be more useful for somebody with a screen reader than adding image descriptions to slides.
Links
When sharing links in documents, emails, or webpages, make sure the content of the link is clear without context.
What to do
Use the name of the page instead and make it clickable.
Avoid: "Click here", Raw URLs
Why it matters
- Screen reader users often navigate directly by link, and "Click here" provides no context.
- Reading out a long URL is confusing and difficult to understand.
- Dyslexic readers are confused by the additional visual noise of raw URLs.