Thank you to everyone who wrote with their ideas for making Word documents more accessible.

Here are my draft guidelines. Your suggestions, expansions, and clarifications are welcome.

Alan

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Tips on creating Word documents that are accessible to 
people with disabilities (draft)

Use styles to structure Word documents

Use Word style commands to structure documents. Word documents formatted with styles are easier to navigate using screen reading software. They also more easily translate into Braille. If you use style commands to format headings, Braille translation software renders the headings. If you create headings without styles, Braille translation software strips away the formatting. The most important styles to use are "Heading 1," "Heading 2," through "Heading 9."

There are other reasons to use styles to format documents: 

· Styles make it easier to modify the appearance of a document. By changing the formatting for a single instance of a style, you change the style throughout the document. 
· You can automatically generate table of contents for documents that use Heading styles.

Do not use tabs and spaces to align columns 

Instead of aligning columns of text visually using tabs and spaces, create multi-column tables using the built-in Table feature. Tabular datum is quite accessible to users of screen reading software. 

Avoid nested tables

Nested tables are difficult to understand with screen reading software. Use nested tables only when absolutely necessary.

Follow punctuation marks with a space

Forgetting to press the space bar after typing a punctuation mark complicates access for people who use screen readers and for people who have certain learning disabilities. 

This rule may not apply when writing equations.

Avoid inserting extra blank lines

Some people start a new page by pressing the Enter key as many times as necessary to "push" text onto the next page. It is preferable to insert a page break. (Insert menu/Break*)

Avoid very small or very large fonts

Avoid fonts smaller than 8 points or larger than 24 points. This will assist people who use screen magnification software, older users, and people with small monitors.

Choose contrasting colour combinations

Be careful when using shaded backgrounds and coloured fonts in Word. People with certain visual impairments may not be able to discern dark grey/light grey or red/green combinations.

Do not use animated text

Avoid using Word's animated font effects such as "Shimmer," "Blinking Background," and "Sparkle Text." These effects appear in Format menu/Font/Animation. Animated effects may trigger seizures in some individuals with photosensitive epilepsy. 

Add alternative text for images

Screen reading software cannot read images inserted into Word files, such as WordArt and Clipart, unless the images are labeled. To add a label, right-click the image (or select the image and press Shift+F10), choose "Format Picture" and go to the "Web" tabbed page. Note: the alternative text feature is not supported in Word 6.0 or Word 97. 


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Alan Cantor
Project Manager
Strategic e-Government Implementation
e-Government, OCCS
416-212-1152
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