Creating Accessible Documents

When creating a document in Microsoft Word or similar software, it can be tempting to alter the document’s look simply by making adjustments in the Font and Paragraph panes in the ribbon. Although you can change your document’s look this way, you can’t affect its underlying structure, which means your document won’t contain the features that some users, especially those with visual impairments, depend on.

Instead of making adjustments to the Font pane first, look at the Styles pane. You can use these styles to create a properly structured document.

If you click the overlined down-facing chevron beside the Styles pane, you can see all of Word’s default styles. By right-clicking on a style, you can choose to Modify it or remove it if you don’t need it.

The Normal Style

It’s a good idea to begin by altering the Normal style, which will be the style of your document’s body text. Normal usually appears first in the Styles pane when you open Word. Most of the other styles are based on Normal, so, by adjusting it first, you can create a default look that will form the foundation of your other styles.

Note: To ensure that the various settings in your document do not interfere with one another, you should ensure that the settings for Normal are the same as your document defaults. To set your defaults:

• Open the Styles dialog box by selecting the arrow-shaped button in the lower right corner of the Styles pane.

• Select Manage Styles, which may look like the letter A with a checkmark next to it.

• Select the Set Defaults pane on the Manage Styles dialog box.

• Set the defaults to be identical to the settings of the Normal style.

Custom Styles

By default, Word already has several pre-defined styles, the most important of which are visible in the Styles pane when you open Word. However, you are not limited to these styles. You can create new styles from scratch to suit the needs of your document.

To create a new style, Select the overlined chevron to the left of the Styles pane and then select Create a Style. This will open a dialog box in which you can define a new style.

Once the dialog box is open, you can select Modify to define the new style’s name and other features.

From the Format dropdown, you can select several categories of feature that you can modify. The most important of these are Font… and Paragraph…, which will allow you to alter the look of the text and the way it is spaced on the page.

Paragraph Spacing

To ensure accessibility, you want to avoid blank lines in your document. That means you shouldn’t create a space between paragraphs by hitting the enter key. Instead, create a space by defining your body text as having spacing either After or Before. All spacing in your document can be defined in this fashion so that blank lines can be entirely avoided.

Cleaning Up Your Styles

By default, the Styles pane contains several pre-defined styles that you are unlikely to use, such as Intense Emphasis or Subtle Reference. You can remove a style by right-clicking on it and selecting Remove from Style Gallery.

The use of semantic headings is fundamental to accessible design. The Styles pane displays Heading 1 and Heading 2 by default. Additional heading levels (up to 9) will display as you use them.

You should always place headings in your document using the headings in the Styles pane, not by simply styling your text by adjusting the font size or appearance. You can alter the look of the headings the same way you can alter the look of Normal text.

Your Title

Microsoft Word has default styles called Title and Subtitle, which are intended for the title of your document. However, although Microsoft claims that these styles are accessible, accessibility experts generally recommend against using them because screen readers do not consistently recognize them, and because they will not transfer properly if you convert your document to a different format (such as PDF). Instead, use Heading 1 for the title of your document, and then create additional headings starting with Heading 2.

A Good Outline

The rules for headings within a document are similar to the rules for writing a good outline:

• Do not skip levels; i.e., a Heading 2 should not be immediately followed by a Heading 4.

• Ensure that a heading of any level (Except level 1) is matched by at least one other heading at the same level; i.e., if you have a Heading 2, a second Heading 2 should appear somewhere in the document.

• Use only one Heading 1 in your document, for the title.

Navigating with Headings

Even if you do not use assistive technology, you can observe the benefit of a good heading structure. Open the Navigation Pane (press ctrl + F or select View ⇒ Navigation Pane) and then select the pane’s Headings tab. If your document has headings, you will be able to use this pane to view the document’s outline and navigate instantly between sections.

It’s important to use lists correctly in all your documents. Microsoft Word allows for both bulleted and numbered lists (sometimes called unordered and ordered lists, respectively) as well as more complex lists with nesting.

Screen readers recognize and announce lists to users with visual impairments. For this reason, you should use Word’s built-in lists and should not attempt to create lists manually.

Typically, when you start a list by typing an asterisk followed by a space, or a number followed by a period and a space, Word will interpret this as the beginning of a list and begin formatting automatically. You can also create a list by selecting the Bullets or Numbering option in the Paragraph panel on the ribbon.

When you create lists, Word automatically generates a style called List Paragraph. Generally, it is not a good idea to alter the appearance of List Paragraph directly. Instead, you can create a custom list style.

1. Begin by creating a new style in the manner described above.

2. In the Create New Style from Formatting dialog box, select Format + Numbering ….

3. This will open the Numbering and Bullets dialog box. From there, you can select the style of number or bullet you want for your custom list.

4. You can also alter the Paragraph and Font of your custom list as previously described.

Styles vs. Font

We’ve already discussed the importance of using heading styles to structure your document. Both the word processor itself and any other technologies (e.g., screen readers or a convert-to-PDF function) will be able to interpret those headings as well. But it is also a best practice to use styles to govern any other changes you need to make to your document’s appearance.

That means that, ideally, you would avoid using the Font pane entirely:

Of course, this may not always be easy or practical, at least in particularly complex documents. Generally, however, you should seek to use Styles as much as possible. Word comes with some built-in styles you should consider using as alternatives to the options in the Font pane:

• Emphasis: The emphasis style, by default, italicizes text. This style denotes text that is stressed. Some technologies may recognize this style and use it to convey information to the user.

• Strong: The strong style, by default, sets text in bold. This style denotes text that is especially important.

• Book title: The book title style, by default, italicizes and bolds text, and it also sets additional spacing between letters. In most cases, you will probably want to modify this style to change its default appearance. It is intended for titles of books and other long works. (Do not confuse it with the Title style, which is intended for the title of your document.

You may also need to create additional styles for text that is in italics or bold but does not fit into one of these categories. However, although using styles for every stylistic change is best practice, most users will, realistically, still make some alterations using the Font pane or keyboard shortcuts.