About the Checklist 

Use the Accessible Microsoft Word Checklist to double-check your Word document. This checklist is meant to remind you to include accessibility best practices in your Word documents and help you develop good content creation habits. This checklist is based off of the Create Accessible Word Documents training in LinkedIn Learning. 

Getting Started

The President's Office Accessible Word Template provides some basic accessible formatting and styling to get you started, including a readable and familiar font, built-in heading styles, and a monochrome color palette for charts and graphs. If you are a campus employee, please check with your campus for an accessible Word template to use. 

Hierarchy and Structure

You should always update the Title in the document properities of Word and, if necessary, update the Author field. Access Microsoft's Change document properties article for step-by-step instructions. 
Heading levels should represent the structure of the document and are vital to conveying that structure to screen reader users. A Heading 1 is the main content heading. There is generally just one Heading 1 per document, although it is possible to have more than one (e.g., a journal where each article is a Heading 1). A Heading 2 is a major section heading. A Heading 3 is a sub-section of the Heading 2. A Heading 4 is a sub-section of the Heading 3, and so on.
Using the built-in bulleted and numbered list styling in Microsoft Word ensures that screen reader users receive key semantic information about the list. For example, if you use built-in bullets, screen reader users will hear “item 1 of 5.” If you just put dashes or asterisks, all a screen reader user will hear is ”dash” or “asterisk.” The number of items will not be conveyed. This is even more critical for step-by-step instructions where a screen reader user would like to know the total steps provided for a process. Access Microsoft's Create a bulleted or numbered list article for step-by-step instructions. 
Avoid using text boxes in Microsoft Word as they make it difficult for screen readers to access the contents of the text box in the proper context of the page. If you do need to use text boxes specifically for designing content on the Cover page of a document, you should always set the text boxes to be inline with the text on the page so that the content is exposed to screen reader users. If you skip this step, the content is treated as an image and is invisible to screen reader users. 
Tables are for providing a clear structure to data, such as a contact list or a table of financial numbers. Using tables for layout purposes, such as to make content appear in two columns, creates an inefficient and confusing experience for screen reader users.
Microsoft's built-in column functionality is a great tool for establishing the visual layout of your document, while maintaining accessibility. You can establish column breaks at any point on a page – you do not need to make the whole page two columns. A page could begin full width and then switch over to column design when needed in the page layout. Avoid narrow columns so that you support text resizing for the low vision community. 
 
Do not use the enter key to create page breaks in a Word document as this will create an inaccessible experience for screen reader users. Instead, use the built-in page break functionality, which will provide a clean and accessible experience for screen reader users. Access Microsoft's Insert a page break in Word article for step-by-step instructions. 
 

Data Tables

If you create a data table in Word, you should ensure it meets the following best practices. A reminder to never use tables for layout purposes - they should only be used for data comparison tables. 

Keep the Title of the table separate – sometimes folks try to add the title of the table as the top row, but this breaks the overall semantics of the table for screen reader users – the Title should be above the table and assigned the appropriate heading level within the document structure. 
Merging or splitting cells breaks the accessibility of the table and prevents assistive technology users from reading the data in a clear and understandable way. 
Stick to darker colors when selecting a table design, such as the Accent 1 (Dark blue) in Microsoft Word. If you are unsure of whether the design you selected meets color contrast guidelines, you can verify that the background color of the header row and the foreground font color meet color contrast guidelines by testing them in the WebAIM Contrast Checker. 
Using color as the only way to convey meaning leaves out the blind, low vision, colorblind, and deafblind communities. For example, sometimes people will use Red and Green to note the status of content. Instead add a column with the data you are trying to convey, such as a status column with values of Project is on Track and Dates Being Missed. This also provides clarity to neurodivergent employees. If you use color in addition to status, always avoid over-saturated colors and ensure the colors you select pass color contrast guidelines when paired with the text in the column. 
Creating a manual table of contents is time consuming and prevents keyboard only users from being able to use the table of contents to quickly get to a section of the document. Instead, when developing a document over five pages long, you should always use the built-in table of contents functionality to create an interactive table of contents. You can confirm how the Table of Contents structure will look by reviewing your heading structure through the Navigation view. Access Microsoft's Insert a table of contents article for step-by-step instructions. 
 

Content Best Practices

Use a font such as Arial, Verdana, or Times New Roman. The font size should be no smaller than 12 points.
Left aligned text maintains consistent character and word spacing, while center, justified, and right aligned text are all harder to read.
Reserve underlining for links only so that the colorblind and low vision community can easily identify links.
 
Avoid using all caps or italics as both reduce the overall readability of content. Note that bold is not picked up by screen readers so if it's important to draw folks attention to a specific area of your document, consider adding a properly nested heading above the content to emphasize it instead. 
Plain language guidelines include: Addressing your reader directly, writing in an active voice, writing brief and clear sentences, avoiding the use of abbreviations, jargon, and complex language, and using bulleted or numbered lists to convey three or more ideas that tie into a broader theme. You can learn more about plain language at the Federal plain language guidelines site. 
You should always write unique and meaningful link text for any links in your document. Usually the best option is to have the link name match the web page or document the person is going to be sent to. For example, if you are sending the person to the 2023 Financial Statement, rather than embedding a long url into the document, you would add the descriptive name “2023 Financial Statement,” then highlight that text, and embed a link within the text. If you plan on having the document printed, you can include a shortened link in parenthesis right after the descriptive link. 

Images and Charts 

A screen reader cannot discern the contents of an image.
Alternative text provides the blind, deafblind, and low vision community with a description of the image that should convey the overall meaning and intent of the image. Access the Add alternative text to a shape, picture, chart, SmartArt Graphic, or other objects article for step-by-step instructions. 
When it comes to charts and graphs, as you can not provide semantics via alt text (e.g., headings, bullets, etc.), you should provide a brief description of the chart in the alt text and then provide a chart description below that provides the overall details included in the chart. The chart description also benefits anyone that is sighted and finds a chart’s visual design hard to follow.  
When images and graphs are not added in line, they can either be missed by a screen reader or the order of the image will not align with the reading order of the content. Note that, by default, Word sets text wrapping to In line with text when you insert or paste a new picture into a document so as long as you do not change the text wrap, you should be all set, but you can confirm your default text wrap setting by accessing the Change default text wrap setting for images article. 
Chart titles should provide meaningful context. 
Chart types that should include axis titles are line charts, bar charts, scatter plots, and column charts. Axis titles provide crucial context about the data being represented on each axis. Access the Add or remove titles in a chart article for step-by-step instructions. 
 
Providing data labels for both your category and either the percentage or number ensures that your chart does not rely on color alone to convey meaning. 
 
Monochrome color palettes work best for provding an accessible color palette for the color blind and low vision community. You can generate a colorblind safe color palette by using Chroma.js Color Palette. 
 

Running the Accessibility Checker and Saving Your Word Document

While the Accessibility Checker won’t catch everything, it can catch some accessibility issues you may have missed, including any images that are missing alt text, missing table headers, merged or split cells, and lack of headings within a document. Reference Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker for step-by-step instructions.
Unless the content is proprietary, there is no reason to save it as a PDF. If you do save the file to PDF, further remediation will be required using Adobe Acrobat for the file to be formatted correctly. Previously, PDFs were used to ensure content could not be changed. However, PDFs can actually be switched back to their native format through the export feature so PDFs are not as secure as they appear. There is a way to lock down PDFs entirely as read only, but that function actually prevents PDFs from being accessed by assistive technology and should not be used.

Optional: Send a Copy of the Completed Checklist to Yourself

Note that your submission will not be saved in a database. The only copy will be the copy you receive via email.