About a quarter of U.S. adults have a disability. While not all of them impact how an individual interacts with digital documents, designing content to meet all possible needs is beneficial to all users. A common example that illustrates this point is the "curb-cut effect." Originally created for people in wheelchairs, curb cuts (dips at the edge of a sidewalk) also benefit people pushing strollers, skateboarders, people wheeling luggage, and others. The same principle applies to creating accessible documents! Whether you're creating or editing documents using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe, or another tool, the following general guidelines can help you make them accessible to all users.
Most document tools also include a built-in accessibility checker — look for it before you publish or share a file.
Universal Principles
No matter which tool you use, the same handful of habits make a document accessible:
- Check color contrast. Text should have enough contrast with its background to be readable, and color shouldn't be the only way information is conveyed. See Color.
- Use real headings. Apply built-in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) instead of just making text bold or bigger, and don't skip levels. See Headings.
- Write meaningful link text. Link text should make sense on its own, without relying on the surrounding sentence. See Links.
- Use real list formatting. Use the list tool in your software rather than typing dashes or numbers by hand. See Lists.
- Add alt text to images. Every meaningful image needs a short written description for people who can't see it. See Images.
- Mark table headers. Identify column and row headers so screen readers can announce data in the right order. See Tables.
Find Instructions for Your Tool