Creating accessible documents
We prioritise publication of webpages rather than documents
We publish as much content as possible as web pages.
Checklist for a more accessible word document
- 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.
- Use 12-point font size or above.
Long, complicated text slows the customer journey. It leads to misunderstanding and avoidable contact for clarification.
Where you need to use technical terms, abbreviations or acronyms, explain what they mean the first time you use them.
Guidance
- A to Z style guide
- Capital letters
- Writing copy for the web gives some suggestions about how to write for an online audience.
- Do not use a colour to convey a meaning.
- Use sufficient colour contrast between text and background (contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text).
- Use black and white as a default - and if you use colour, make sure the contrast meets Level AA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 . You can use the WebAIM: Contrast checker
- Adjust paragraph spacing to avoid blank lines through the Paragraph formatting menu.
- Ensure page breaks are used when starting a new page.
- Use formatting view to check for empty lines.
- Use Page Layout tab then Columns to properly insert a column.
- Avoid using spaces and tabs, it will not be recognized as a column by assistive technology.
- Use Bullets, Numbering, or Multilevel List options to create lists properly.
Always use the heading styles which can be found in the Home Menu to style headings in order as Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3
- Use Heading 1 for the title of the document. There should only be one Heading 1
- Use Heading 2 as the top-level heading such as chapter or section titles and go forward one level at a time (i.e., move from Heading 2 to Heading 3, to Heading 4, etc.)
- Ensure style elements have a different look from the others (i.e., Heading 1 looks bigger than Heading 2 etc.)
Video
Alternate text (alt text) is read by screen readers to tell people what an image shows.
- Add Alternative text, or alt text.
- Mark images that contain no information or meaning as "decorative", so they aren't picked up by an assistive device.
- Set wrapping style of images as "In line with text".
Video
Only use tables as a way of presenting data. You should not use tables as a way of formatting text on a page, because it is not accessible and can make information more difficult to understand.
- Insert tables properly using the Insert tab. Do not draw cells.
- Use a simple table structure (do not merge cells).
- Do not use images in tables.
- Apply table style options using the Table Design tab: check the Header Row check box.
- Review table properties: uncheck "allow row to break across pages" and check "repeat as header row at the top of each page".
- Add alternative text to table.
Video
- Use descriptive hyperlinks (i.e., ensure that the hyperlink has context and describes where it leads).
- Create accessible links
- Creating accessible hyperlinks gives advice on writing hyperlink text.
Prioritise hyperlinks - if tasks are fulfilled by following hyperlinks, place the links above descriptive copy.
All documents submitted for publication on the Kirklees website must have their document properties filled in.
The document owner, or the agency which produced the document, is responsible for filling the document properties in.
- Add a descriptive title to the document through the Info section of the File tab.
- Use a meaningful file name for the document.
- Add the author name
- Keywords Comma-separated list of words or phrases that people would use to search the document
Filling in document properties tells you how to do this.
- Review document using the built-in MS Office Accessibility Checker.
- Make appropriate changes to the documents as indicated/required.
Use the Microsoft accessibility checker tool - The checker assists with finding accessibility errors in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
Although the checker can find a variety of issues, it does not find every possible error.
If you get a clean bill from the accessibility checker, you still need to manually check the heading structure and make sure links use descriptive hyperlink text.
Guidance
If you need to convert a Word document to a PDF, follow the instructions above to format headings, tables and lists with Word styles. Also, convert any embedded Office objects to images and add alternative text to all your images.
- Select File, save as PDF
- Select Options
- Tick create bookmarks using headings
- Tick document structure tags for accessibility
- Tick optimize for image quality
