Overview of Document Accessibility
As a public body we are obliged to make reasonable efforts to make our services and information accessible to everyone who needs it. If it isn’t, we may be in breach of the Equality Act 2010.
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 also came into force on 23 September 2018, which means every public sector website and app will need to meet certain accessibility standards.
On this page:
- Headings
- Lists
- Images
- Document language
- Tables
- Exporting
- Accessible Word documents
- Accessible pdfs from Word
- Accessible pdfs from InDesign
- Fixing inaccessible pdfs using Adobe Acrobat Pro
- Search Engine Optimization
- GOV.UK advice
When creating content, there are a few basic steps that should be followed in order to assure your content is accessible. The core steps needed for accessibility are the same regardless of whether your document is in HTML, Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or another document format.
Use headings
Headings and subheadings should to be identified as such using the built-in heading features of the authoring tool rather than just making them bold and increasing the font size.
Headings should form an outline and logical structure of the page content (Heading 1 for the main heading, Heading 2 for the first level of sub-headings, Heading 3 for the next level of sub-headings, etc.). This enables screen reader users to understand how the page is organized, and to quickly navigate to content of interest. Most screen readers have features that enable users to jump quickly between headings with a single key-stroke.
Use lists
Any content that is organized as a list should be created using the list controls that are provided in document authoring software. Most authoring tools provide one or more controls for adding unordered lists (with bullets) and ordered lists (with numbers).
When lists are explicitly created as lists, this helps screen readers to understand how the content is organized. When screen reader users enter a list, their screen reader informs them that they’re on a list and may also inform them of how many items are in the list, which can be very helpful information when deciding whether to continue reading.
Add alternative text to images
Users who are unable to see images depend on content authors to supplement their images with alternative text, which is often abbreviated “alt text”.
The purpose of alt text is to communicate the content of an image to people who can’t see it.
The alt text should be succinct, just enough text to communicate the idea without burdening the user with unnecessary detail. When screen readers encounter an image with alt text, they typically announce the image then read the alt text.
Most authoring tools provide a means of adding alternative text to images, usually in a dialog that appears when an image is added, or later within an image properties dialog.
If images are purely decorative and contain no informative content, they do not require a description. However, they may still require specific markup so screen readers know to skip them such as treating them as background.
Also, images that require a more lengthy description, such as charts and graphs, may require additional steps beyond adding alt text.
Identify document language
Leading screen reader software is multilingual, and can read content in a wide variety of languages. In order to ensure that screen readers will read a document using the appropriate language profile, the language of the document must be identified.
You should also identify the language of any content written in a language other than the document’s default language. With this information, supporting screen readers will switch between language profiles as needed on the fly.
Most document authoring tools provide a means of identifying the document language as well the language of specific parts.
Use tables wisely
Tables in documents are useful for communicating relationships between data, especially where those relationships can be best expressed in a matrix of rows and columns. Tables should not be used to control layout. Authoring tools have other means of doing this, including organizing content into columns.
If your data is best presented in a table, try to keep the table simple. If the table is complex, consider whether you could divide it into multiple smaller tables with a heading above each.
A key to making data tables accessible to screen reader users is to clearly identify column and row headers. Also, if they are nested in columns or rows with multiple headers for each cell, screen readers need to be explicitly informed as to which headers relate to which cells.
Understand how to export from one format to another
In order for a PDF document to be accessible, it must be a “tagged” PDF, with an underlying tagged structure that includes all of the features already described above. There are right ways and wrong ways to export documents to PDF.
Some authoring tools don’t support tagged PDF at all, while others provide multiple ways of exporting to PDF, some that produce tagged PDF and some that don’t.
The core principles are the same for all document types, but the individual steps vary depending on which tool you’re using and what the final format of the document will be.
Creating accessible documents in Word
A PDF is only as accessible as the document it’s created from.
The first step in creating an accessible PDF from Microsoft Word is to ensure that the original Word document is accessible. An inbuilt accessibility checker (for Word 2010) is provided.
Switch on the navigation pane in Word while you work to show the page structure.
It’s this structure which something like a screen reader will use to scan the page.
Starting with an accessible Word document, a goal when exporting to PDF is do so in a way that preserves the accessibility features of the Word document, including heading structure, alternate text for images, and markup that explicitly identifies lists, tables, document language, and other content that is important for accessibility.
Creating accessible pdfs from Word
Do not print to PDF. This method of creating a PDF does not preserve the document’s accessibility features. The correct method of exporting to PDF depends on which version of Microsoft Office you’re using.
Creating accessible pdfs from InDesign
These links apply specifically to InDesign CS5.5, which includes significant improvements to accessibility support over previous versions.
Fixing inaccessible pdfs using Adobe Acrobat Pro
It is always best if possible to start with an accessible source document (e.g., in Microsoft Word) and export to an accessible PDF. This way, if the document is edited later, the document’s accessibility features will still be intact and when the document is exported again to PDF the accessibility features will again be passed to the PDF.
However, if the original source document is not available, accessibility features can be added to the PDF using Adobe Acrobat Pro.
Steps to follow
NOTE: Modifying PDFs can have unpredictable results, and there is no “Undo”. Save often! (Saving multiple versions is recommended)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Making content accessible will help improve search engine optimization making it easier to find on the internet.
