Creating with accessibility
in mind

There are a few simple things you can do to make sure your document, presentation, article or digital resource you are creating is accessible:

• Use styles where possible to show where the headings are. For a document, such as dissertation, report, proposal, article, etc. you can use the resource on the dedicated Word for Large Documents website (opens in a new tab) to learn how to use styles.

• For online documents or for document that will be printed with font size 12pt or smaller use Sans-serif fonts like Aptos, Arial or Calibri.

• If you have screenshots of tables or text that you want to use, please recreate them with the tools in the software you are using (Word, PowerPoint, etc.).

Adding Alt-text to images and drawings

• This video from Microsoft shows how to add Alt-text in older versions of Word (works exactly the same way in PowerPoint) (opens in a new tab).

• If the image is purely decorative, just say "decorative" in the Alt-text.

• To add Alt-text to an image in a newer version of Microsoft Office, click on the image and the Picture Tools - Format tab will appear in the ribbon at the top. Go to it and click on the Alt-Text icon and a side panel will open on the right hand side allowing you to type the description of the image or mark it as decorative.

Some tips

• Avoid using an image as a background of text as the text may be more difficult to read over the image.

• Avoid using images of text (like screenshots of text) when it can be simply typed as text.

• Use solid colours rather than gradient colours to easily achieve the contrast needed and to reduce visual stress.

• Use colours consistently and if there is colour coding, use colours that would be still distinguishable even if converted to greyscale.

Pick your colours to achieve good contrast between text and background. You can test if your colour choices have good contrast using www.whocanuse.com (opens in a new tab). To do that, you will need the HEX codes of the colours you want to test.  This is how you can find them: 

• YouTube

  • Upload the video as unlisted, wait a few minutes (hours for longer videos) for the video to be processed and then when automatic captions are available edit them (opens in a new tab). 

• Microsoft Word 365 - video tutorial available on using Dictate or Transcribe tools (opens in a new tab).