This article is intended for students, faculty, and staff who are interested in making Word documents accessible.
Click on File found in the Word menu
Click Info
Under Properties, add the Title and Author if needed
Use Styles found in the Home tab of the Ribbon
Modify the heading format by right mouse clicking on the Heading in the Styles panel
Emphasis style is for italics and Strong is for bold
Tip: Turn on Navigation Pane in Word to see the structure. Click on View in the Ribbon and turn it on under Show section
Do not start alt text with “picture of“ or “graphic of”
Validate auto-generated alt text
Include enough information for end user
Exclude information found near the image (example: caption below image)
Include alt text for images with hyperlink
Tip: You can turn on/off the Automatic Alt Text setting found in File > Options > Accessibility
Write link text where it is going, for example IT Accessibility
Do not use “click here”, “learn more”, “read more”
Do not underline text that is not a link because keyboard users may think it is a link that is inaccessible
Use only data for tables
Designate top row as the header for each column
Turn on Repeat Header Row (found under Layout menu item when table is highlighted)
Add Alt Text to the table
Cannot create accessible table if using split cells, merged cells, or nested tables in Word when exporting to PDF
Tab through each cell to check for navigation (left to right and down)