Creating Accessible Microsoft Word for Windows Documents to use as a PDF

The best way to guarantee that a PDF will be accessible is to make sure that the source document is accessible. There are features built into Office and techniques we can use to make sure that the documents we create are accessible. Here we are covering Word for Windows, but you can do this with Word on macOS, too.

General Guidance

When you are making Word documents, follow these general guidelines:

Use structural text styles, such as titles, headings, and subtitles.
If possible, avoid using tables, especially for layout. If you must display data of some kind, prefer presenting it in an alternate way. If you do use a table, make sure you specify the column headers as actual table column headers
Make sure that images have image descriptions (alt text)
Make sure images and text have proper color contrast.
Make sure that color is not the only thing conveying meaning
Link text, if any, must be meaningful
Avoid writing or placing important information in the header and footer of a document, as screen readers can’t reach it

Why Avoid Tables?

Fixed width tables can be hard on people who rely on magnification software because the fixed width forces the content to be a specific size. Due to the size constraints, this causes the font to become hard to read and causes magnification users to scroll horizontally. This is particularly a problem for mobile device users.

If you must use a table, you can specify column or row headers by doing the following:

Enter the table
Go to the “Table Design” tab in the ribbon
Tick the “Header Row” checkbox to make the first row of a table the column headers
In the “Table Design” tab on the ribbon, you can tick the “First Column” or “Last Column” checkboxes if you want the first or last column of your table to be row headers

Why Are Column and Row Headers Important?

Column and row headers are important because they help a screen reader user better understand where they are in the table. Without that information, a screen reader would get lost or find it difficult to traverse the table.

What About Nesting, Splitting, and Merging Tables and Their Cells?

This might work fine visually, but for screen reader users, this can confuse them, and the screen reader can lose track of where it is. This results in the screen reader being unable to convey any useful information to the user. If you’re not sure if a table in your document has a split, merged, or nested table, you can use the Accessibility Checker feature within Word by going to the “Review” tab in the ribbon and clicking on “Check Accessibility.”

Using Structural Text Styles

Instead of putting the document’s title and/or subtitle in the header, put them in the body of the document. This ensures that screen reader users can discover them. Additionally, use the title and subtitle text styles for these so that the correct visual and non-visual information is conveyed. Your document ideally will also have headings. Unlike web pages, documents must not skip heading levels. Headings and their corresponding levels convey the structure of the document both visually and to screen readers for easy navigation. This is particularly important for screen reader users because they typically do a high-level overview of the headings before reading anything else in the document. Screen reader users navigate by headings, too, so they can find the section they care about. If headings are not organized logically by their levels, it can cause confusion, and the user gets lost.

Add Image Descriptions to Images

Image descriptions, also known as alt text, allow a screen reader to perceive the content of an image through a textual description. Though authoring image descriptions can be a judgment call, there are a few general guidelines you should follow when writing descriptions for your images:

Avoid using images with text in them as the primary way of communicating important information. If you must use an image with text in it, repeat the information in the body of the document. For the image’s alt text, briefly describe the image, the existence of the text, and its purpose.
For normal image descriptions, describe the image and its purpose as short and concise as possible while also being descriptive. This is where it becomes a judgment call.

Accessible Link Text

Screen reader users often scan a document by links, and people who use voice control software speak the text of a link aloud to activate it. For those reasons, it is important to give links text that properly describes the destination. Text that is one or two words, like “here”, “click here”, and “learn more” are not helpful because it doesn’t have a specific meaning related to the destination. Additionally, style links with an underscore font style to indicate that it is a link to those who may not be able to see the color of the link.

Font and Text Styling

To reduce the reading load of the document, prefer using sans serif fonts like Arial and Calibri, and avoid using excessive uppercasing, underlining, and italics. For headings, consider making them bold or a larger font. Additionally, make sure your document can be read in high contrast themes. To make sure that the background and foreground colors of text have proper color contrast, you can use the Accessibility Checker in the “Review” tab in the ribbon. When you must include lists in your document, use the bulleted and numbered lists that Word gives you, instead of hand typing the list markers.

To improve the legibility of your document for people with dyslexia, and related issues processing written information, consider increasing the spacing between sentences, lines, and paragraphs. This prevents text from appearing to swim and merge together.

How to Export to an Accessible PDF Document

To export a Microsoft Word document to a PDF, follow these instructions:

Go to the “File” tab in the ribbon
Select “Save As.”
Change the file type to PDF
Select “More Options.”
Select “Options.”
Tick the checkbox that says “Document Structure Tags for Accessibility.”