Access and Disability Services

The most common inaccessible file is an image PDF. Old scans of articles and book chapters are often image PDFs. These are inaccessible to text-to-speech and screen reader softwares frequently used by students with learning disabilities and vision impairments to listen to text.

​To test whether a PDF is accessible, try selecting/highlighting text using your cursor. If you are unable to select text, it is an image file and is not accessible. The easiest way to make your file accessible is to use our online File Converter. Just upload your file, and a converted, accessible file will be delivered to your email inbox in minutes. You can then distribute this version to all your students. The quality of conversion will depend on the quality of the original document uploaded, so try to use clear, high quality scans.

If for any reason you want to convert a PDF by hand instead of using the online File Converter, you can make scanned PDFs accessible using Acrobat Pro (available to all faculty and staff; contact the IITS Pro Desk prodesk [at] haverford.edu). There are several aspects to making a fully accessible PDF, but the most essential component is that the text is recognizable. To do this, got to View > Tools > “Recognize Text”.

Resources

• The University of Washington: Fixing Inaccessible PDFs using Adobe Acrobat Pro
• WebAIM: PDF Accessibility

The text within Word documents can be made reasonably accessible if you follow these core accessibility principles:

1. Structure. Instead of making text larger or bold, use the built-in Heading Styles.
2. Figures. Whenever you add images, drawings, charts, tables, diagrams, or graphs, add alternative text (Alt Text).
3. Hyperlinks. Use hyperlink text that is meaningful. Avoid “Click Here” or “For more information.”
4. List Styles. For ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) list, use Word’s built-in list tools.
5. Color and Contrast. Use good color contrast and do not use color alone to convey meaning.
6. Tables. Tables should only be used for data and must be formatted properly by specifying a header rows in tables.
7. Accessibility Checker. Use the Accessibility Checker (available in Word 2010) to check for accessibility. Watch the YouTube video of Creating Accessible Microsoft Word 2010 Documents: Using the Accessibility Checker.

Resources

• Microsoft: Creating Accessible Word Docs
• Web AIM: Microsoft Word
• Lynda.com (login required): Creating Accessible Microsoft Office Documents

PowerPoint documents consist of one or more slides that are typically used to enhance and clarify a lecture or presentation. Each slide has a main area that is displayed when the slideshow is projected to an audience, as well as a notes area that is primarily visible to the presenter. When creating a PowerPoint, keep the following accessibility and universal design principles in mind:

1. Themes. Use simple, standard themes for your background and templates.
2. Title. Give each slide a unique title.
3. Text. Limit the amount of text on each slide.
4. Table. Use simple table structure with a clearly labeled header row.
5. Fonts. Use large, sans serif fonts.
6. Contrast. Use strong color contrasts. A light background with dark text or dark background with light text is best. Make sure your slide is readable in grayscale.
7. Color. Use font size, line thickness, graphics, and other visual cues in addition to color to convey ideas, trends, or themes. This will make your ideas more clear to those that are colorblind.
8. Presentations. Verbally describe all graphics including tables, charts, and images during presentations.
9. Images and Videos. Include alt text for all images and close-caption for videos.
10. Transitions. Consider incorporating slide transitions that include sound. This allows audience members who are blind or visually impaired to know when you are moving to a new slide.
11. Accessibility Checker. Use the Accessibility Checker (available in PowerPoint 2010) to check for accessibility. The Accessibility Checker is available on PC version of Microsoft Office.

Resources

• Microsoft: Creating accessible PowerPoint presentations
• Web AIM: PowerPoint Accessibility
• Lynda.com (login required): Creating Accessible Microsoft Office Documents

If you are using videos in your courses, try to find ones with subtitles and closed captions. This helps make the content accessible to all learners, including those with hearing impairments and those who are English language learners. If you are creating your own videos, YouTube provides you with a way to add subtitles and closed captions. Here are the instructions for adding subtitles and closed captions for your YouTube videos. The “Dragon Naturally Speaking” software can also produce pretty good transcriptions for your videos.

Many websites have formatting that is not accessible to screen-reader or text-to-speech technology. You can check the accessibility of websites you want to use in your courses with this free web accessibility evaluation tool “Wave” from WebAIM: http://wave.webaim.org.