Accessible Documents

Information for multiple document types

• Use RoboBraille document converter to create accessible PDF documents or MP3 recordings. 
• Accessibility checker for Word, Excel and PowerPoint: a built in tool that will identify accessibility issues in your documents.
• Accessibility cheatsheets: guidelines for creating accessible documents in multiple versions of MS Word, PowerPoint, and Excel; PDF; InDesign; and Acrobat
• Guide to Creating Accessible Electronic Materials: a resource from George Mason University with instructions for multiple document types. 

Microsoft Word 

General guidelines:

• Use heading styles to separate sections of your documents. This helps screen readers navigate easily through the pages. 
• Add alternative (Alt) text to all images, charts and graphs. For purely decorative images, use "" as the alternative text. This designation tells screen readers to skip over the image. 
• Use link text that explains the link purpose and not "click here" or the entire URL string. 
• Use true columns, true bullets and true numbering. Avoid using tabs and hard returns for space formatting. 
• Avoid colored text. If using color, provide an alternate mode of conveying meaning such as patterns or shapes. 

Detailed resources:  

• MS Word Accessibility Checker or Google Docs Accessibility Checker: a built in tools that will identify accessibility issues in your documents.
• WebAIM Microsoft Word document recommendations 
• Video: Eight Steps To Creating Accessible Microsoft Word Documents 

Adobe PDF

General guidelines:

• Start with an accessible Word document to create an accessible PDF document.
• Use the columns feature, not tables, for formatting blocks of text. 
• If starting with a scanned image use OCR (optical character recognition) to retrofit accessibility.

Note: to perform OCR and other advanced tasks you will need a full version of Adobe Acrobat. UMass Amherst faculty and staff can obtain a free version for University owned computers. For more information and to download the software see the Adobe Campus Agreement. 

Detailed resources: 

• Video: Eight Essentials for Creating Accessible PDF Documents
• Create Accessible PDF's from multiple document types
• Recognize text in scanned documents using Adobe
• Recognize text in scanned documents using RoboBraille
• Video: Recognizing Text in Scanned PDF Documents

See Creating Accessible Presentations for information on PowerPoint documents.