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Create Accessible Course Materials

The source teaching materials for your course might exist in a variety of formats. For example, your syllabus might be in MS Word, your presentation slides in MS PowerPoint, and your textbooks in publisher-supplied PDF. It is important to consider how accessible these supplemental materials are before making them available through your course.

Carefully consider the document format you choose for publishing your course materials, because some formats support accessibility better than others. Whenever possible, create course materials in HTML format, using the tools available to you in Xen.ed Studio. When you make digital textbooks (ebooks) available within your course, ask digital book publishers for books in EPUB 3 format. This digital book format includes unparalleled support for accessibility. However, simply supporting accessibility does not always mean a document will be accessible. When you source ebooks from third parties, it helps to ask the right questions about accessibility.

Can screen readers read the document text?

For low-vision readers, can the text size, font, and spacing be changed (called “reflow”)?

Do images in the document include alternative text descriptions?

Are all tables, charts, and math provided in an accessible format?

Does all media include text equivalents?

Does the document have navigational aids, such as a table of contents, index, headings, and bookmarks?

Natively accessible formats like those mentioned above might not always be available options. Other popular document formats included in Xen.ed courses include PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Many of the same accessibility techniques and principles that apply to authoring web content apply to these document formats as well.

Images must have descriptive text associated with them.

Documents should be well structured.

Information should be presented in a logical order.

Hyperlinks should be meaningful and describe the destination.

Tables should include properly defined column and row headers.

Color combinations should be sufficiently high contrast (as with websites).

The information that follows provides some practical guidance to publishing accessible course materials in popular formats.

1. Accessible Course Materials Resources

The DAISY Consortium is a global partnership of organizations that supports and helps to develop inclusive publishing standards.

The EPUB 3 format, widely adopted as the premier format for accessible digital books, is now managed by the W3C.

The EPUB 3 working group has an automated EPUB 3 accessibility checker.

2. Creating Accessible PDF Documents

Not all ebooks are available in DAISY or EPUB 3 format. Portable Document Format (PDF) is another common format for course materials, including textbooks supplied by publishers. However, converting materials to PDF documents can create accessibility barriers, particularly for learners with visual impairments. Such learners rely on the semantic document structure inherently available in HTML, DAISY, or EPUB 3 to understand and effectively navigate PDF documents. For more information, see HTML Markup Resources).

Accessibility issues are very common in PDF files that were scanned from printed sources or exported from a non-PDF document format. Scanned documents are simply images of text. To make scanned documents accessible, you must perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on these documents, and proofread the resulting text for accuracy before embedding it within the PDF file. You must also add semantic structure and other metadata (headings, links, alternative content for images, and so on) to the embedded text.

When you export documents to PDF from other formats, it is important to ensure that the source document contains all the required semantic structure and metadata before exporting. Unfortunately, some applications do not include this information when exporting and require the author to add or “tag” the document manually using PDF editing software. You should carefully consider whether exporting to PDF is necessary at all.

Note: OpenOffice and LibreOffice will produce the best results when you export documents to PDF.

2.1. Best Practices for Authoring Accessible PDF Documents

Explicitly define the language of the document so that screen readers know what language they should use to parse the document.

Explicitly set the document title. When you export a file to PDF format, the document title usually defaults to the file name, not a human-readable title.

Verify that all images have alternative content defined or are marked as decorative only.

Verify that the PDF file is “tagged”. Make sure the semantic structure from the source document has been correctly imported to the PDF file.

Verify that logical reading order is defined. This is especially important for documents that have atypical page layouts or structure.

If your document includes tables, verify that table headers for rows and columns are properly defined.

Note: When you export Microsoft Office documents as PDF, use the Save as PDF option. Make sure the Document Structure Tags for Accessibility option is selected (consult your software documentation for more details). PDFs generated from Windows versions of MS Office might be more accessible than those generated from Mac OS versions of MS Office. If you are using Mac OS, we highly recommend exporting from OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Note: When you export from OpenOffice or LibreOffice, use the Export as PDF option. Make sure the Tagged PDF option is selected.

2.2. Evaluating PDF Files for Accessibility

Xen.ed highly recommends using the tools available in Adobe Acrobat Pro (for example, “Accessibility Checker”) to evaluate your PDF files for accessibility. Adobe Acrobat Pro also includes tools (for example, “Make Accessible”) for fixing the most common accessibility issues.

2.3. Accessible PDF Resources

Microsoft provides detailed guidance on generating accessible PDFs from Microsoft Office applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Adobe provides documentation on how to create and verify PDF accessibility.

Adobe Accessibility (Adobe) is a comprehensive collection of resources on PDF authoring and repair, using Adobe’s products.

PDF Accessibility (WebAIM) provides a detailed and illustrated guide on creating accessible PDFs.

The National Center of Disability and Access to Education has a collection of one-page “cheat sheets” on accessible document authoring.

3. Creating Accessible Word Documents

Many of the same accessibility techniques and principles that apply to authoring web content also apply to creating Word documents.

Images must have descriptive text associated with them.

Documents should be well structured.

Hyperlinks should be meaningful and describe the destination.

Tables should include properly defined column and row headers.

Color combinations should be sufficiently high contrast.

Verify the accessibility of your document using Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker.

Use standardized styles for formatting your text, such as Normal, Heading 1, and Heading 2, rather than manually formatting text using text styles and indents. Formatting text for its semantic meaning and not for its visual appearance allows users of assistive technology to consume and navigate documents effectively and efficiently.

3.1. Accessible Microsoft Word Resources

Microsoft guide to creating accessible Word documents.

Microsoft tool that allows you to check Word documents for accessibility issues.

4. Creating Accessible Excel Documents

Many of the same accessibility techniques and principles that apply to authoring data tables in HTML also apply to creating Excel spreadsheets.

Images must have descriptive text associated with them. For more information, see Add alternative text to images and objects in Excel documents.

Column and row headings should be programmatically identified.

Hyperlinks in spreadsheets should be meaningful and describe the destination.

Use a unique and informative title for each worksheet tab.

Do not use blank cells for formatting.

Color combinations should be in high contrast.

Verify the accessibility of your workbook using Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker.

4.1. Accessible Microsoft Excel Resources

Microsoft guide to creating accessible Excel workbooks.

Microsoft tool that allows you to check Excel workbooks for accessibility issues.

5. Creating Accessible PowerPoint Documents

Many of the same accessibility techniques and principles that apply to authoring web content also apply to creating PowerPoint presentations.

Images must have descriptive text associated with them. For more information, see Add alternative text to images and objects in PowerPoint documents.

Column and row headings should be programmatically identified. For more information, see Specify column header information in tables in PowerPoint documents.

Hyperlinks in presentations should be meaningful and describe the destination.

Use a unique and informative title for each slide.

Ensure that information is presented in a logical order

Color combinations should be sufficiently high contrast.

Verify the accessibility of your presentation using Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker.

To make your content accessible and comprehensible to learners who use screen reading software, start in Outline view and include all of your content as text. After completing the outline, add design elements and images, and use the picture formatting options in MS PowerPoint to include detailed text descriptions of images that convey useful information to learners who cannot view the images. Use the Home > Drawing > Arrange > Selection Pane option to view the reading order of objects on each slide. If the reading order is not logical, change the order of the objects.

5.1. Accessible PowerPoint Resources

Microsoft guide to creating accessible PowerPoint presentations.

WebAIM’s PowerPoint Accessibility.

Microsoft tool that allows you to check Powerpoint documents for accessibility issues.

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