Document Details
Document Details
Have you ever struggled to find a document on your computer? Maybe you tried to use the search function but came up empty. This could easily have been avoided if the document details, often referred to as document properties (depending on the software), had been defined for the document.
Document details or properties help everyone, but the properties of the document are a key component to the third tenant of accessibility — accessing the information. Assistive technology (e.g., screen readers) references a document's data to communicate information about its contents. Not only does it make the document easier to find, but it also informs a screen reader what pronunciation to use when presenting the document.
You can define the following document details or properties for most document types:
Title
Author
Keywords or Tags
Language
Subject
The most important details to define are the title and language, but adding keywords or tags and other details also helps everyone more easily locate and access documents. You may have assumed the name of your document or the title you added to your document is automatically identified as the title within the document details or properties, but it is not, you must manually ensure it is defined. However, the author detail or property is usually automatically defined based on who created the document, but you can edit or add additional authors in most software as well.
Note: Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets require a paid extension called Grackle Docs to set document properties.
Creating Accessible Word Documents – Setting Language and Title (Cleveland State University)
Grackle Docs (Grackle)
Language in Word (Accessibility for Online Course Content)
Microsoft How to Set Document Properties (PC) (Microsoft Video)
PDF Properties and Metadata (Adobe)
Specify the Default Language of the Page and Any Language Changes (NDA)
View or Change the Properties for an Office File (Microsoft Support)