Creating Accessible Documents: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 18:03, 16 July 2026

Instructions for creating accessible documents in different programs.

Consider our "Fast Five" essentials for preparing materials for your courses:

Microsoft Documents

Instructions for the Microsoft Office Suite

For Microsoft Office Suite documents such as those created with Word, Powerpoint, or Excel, we highly recommend the LinkedIn Learning course, Digital Accessibility for the Modern Workplace.

All Office Suite documents have an Accessibility Checker built-in. Go to the Review menu and select Check Accessibility.

Google Workspace

Use the Grackle plugin as the in-program accessibility checker for Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets.
Creating PDFs

Apple

Headings in Pages

Type the text you want into Pages.
Select a sentence/phrase that you want to become a heading.
Select Format.
Select the heading you want, such as the Heading 1 button.

PDFs

For accessibility help with PDFs, see the articles Make PDFs Accessible to More Students (Fundamentals) or Accessible Alternatives to PDF.

Additional Resources

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 * [["Fast Five" Essentials to Preparing Materials#Convey_Meaning_with_Words|Convey meaning with words]]
 * [[Use Microsoft's Accessibility Checkers|In-program accessibility checkers]]
-* [[Auto Captioning Videos in Panopto/Enable Automatic Caption Requests Per Folder|Captioning]]
+* [[Captioning Videos in Panopto|Captioning]]
 * [["Fast Five" Essentials to Preparing Materials#Setting_a_Language|Setting a language]]
@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 == PDFs ==
-* [https://www.linkedin.com/learning-login/share?account=76206914&forceAccount=false&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Flearning%2Fcreating-accessible-pdfs-14445392%3Ftrk%3Dshare_ent_url%26shareId%3D51oK2RPkSROFRPvoq9QclQ%253D%253D Creating Accessible PDFs] on LinkedIn Learning
+For accessibility help with PDFs, see the articles [[Make PDFs Accessible to More Students (Fundamentals)]] or [[Accessible Alternatives to PDF]].
-* Use [https://youtu.be/5w8A77Vdwqc Acrobat's built-in Action Wizard] [YouTube] and choose "Make Accessible"
-* [[Creating PDFs|Creating PDFs]]
-* View [https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/creating-accessible-pdfs.html Adobe's article on Creating Accessible PDFs]
-* See [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/make-your-word-documents-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-d9bf3683-87ac-47ea-b91a-78dcacb3c66d Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities]
-=== Instructions for Improving the Accessibility of an Existing PDF ===
+== Additional Resources ==
-==== Use SensusAccess ====
-SensusAccess is an online service that converts text- and image-based documents into different accessible formats (searchable PDFs, audio, Braille, or e-text). It is available to all Swarthmore staff, students, and faculty with a Swarthmore College email address.
-The quality of the converted document is highly dependent on the quality of the original document. For example, a clearly-structured Word document will yield a better result than a poorly-scanned PDF. See [[Using Word's Style Gallery to Create Structure in Your Document|Using Word's Style Gallery to Create Structure in Your Document]] for more information.
-{{Scanning Tips}}
-To begin converting a document, '''go to''' the [https://www.swarthmore.edu/office-academic-success/convert-inaccessible-course-material SensusAccess] page, '''upload''' a file, and '''select''' the appropriate format.
-{{Card
-| variant = info
-| title = Take advantage of SensusAccess from anywhere
-| content = You do not have to be on campus to take advantage of this service.
-}}
-=== Use Adobe Acrobat ===
-PDFs are notoriously difficult to make fully accessible; however, you can make improvements by using tools from within Acrobat.
-==== Image-only PDFs ====
-Many PDFs are not text based even though they contain text, but how do you know? One very quick way is to try to copy a few sections and paste those sections elsewhere. If you cannot copy parts of the page, you are likely dealing with an PDF that is a picture of text. When a PDF is a picture of text the information is not available to those who listen, particularly screen reader users.
-Acrobat has a built-in tool to help called '''Scan & OCR'''. This tool will attempt to convert your image based document to a text-based document. I say “attempt” because there are many factors that contribute to inaccurate text conversions (see the Scanning tips sectiton above). To convert an image based PDF to text follow these steps:
-# Go to '''All tools'''
-# Choose '''Scan & OCR'''
-# Then '''Enhance scanned file'''
-# Choose '''All Pages '''from the drop down and make sure '''Recognize Text''' is checked
-Acrobat has now done its best convert images of text to text. But how will you know if it was an accurate conversion? There are two ways, using Acrobat’s new '''Correct recognized text''' and by using the copy paste method again. We recommend using Acrobat’s new tool first, saving the document after corrections are made, then attempting the copy paste method. To use this new tool:
-# Go to '''Recognize Text'''
-# '''Correct recognized text'''
-# Make any necessary changes
-# Save the file
-# Do the copy paste check
-For more information from Adobe, visit [https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/create-verify-pdf-accessibility.html Create and verify PDF accessibility (Acrobat Pro)]
-== Other options - our libraries and the internet ==
-=== Take advantage of our librarians ===
-Our librarians are well-versed in finding accessible content and can be very useful resources. Visit the [https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/research-support library's research support] page for more information.
-=== Use the power of the internet ===
-Another option—instead of fixing an existing PDF—is to use a web link to an HTML version of the document. Generally, HTML is one of the most accessible document formats.
-== Web Pages ==
 * [https://webaim.org/intro/#principles Principles of Accessible Design]