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.

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.

These additional tips can take your document formatting to the next level.

Using Semantics

Some styles are purely decorative, but some are semantic&emdash;that is, they contain information that is potentially useful to screen readers or other software. Unfortunately, Microsoft Word does not make a clear distinction between semantic and purely decorative styles.

We’ve discussed one type of semantic style already—the Heading, which gives your document a structure and creates a navigational marker. Here are a few other semantics you can use in Word to make your documents more meaningful.

• Italics can easily be created using the I button on the Font panel, or by using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + i. In your document’s markup, this surrounds your italicized text with the element <i>. Semantically, this element represents text that is italicized as a matter of convention. You should use it for titles of books, titles of artwork, names of ships, and words from foreign languages.

• Microsoft Word offers a second way to italicize—by using the Emphasis style, which you can find in the Style Gallery. Although visually identical to other italics, Emphasis surrounds your text with the <em> element, which represents text that is stressed, such as an emphasized word in dialogue. Ideally, you should regular italics for titles and foreign words and Emphasis for words you wish to emphasize.

• Similarly, Word offers two methods of making text bold. Selecting the B button on the Font panel or using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + B will create a <b> element. The semantical meaning of this element is ambiguous: Paradoxically, it is defined as being for text that is meant to call the reader’s attention, but which does not have special importance. One appropriate use is to mark vocabulary terms that are later defined in a glossary.

• On the other hand, the Strong style, which you will find in the Style Gallery, creates a <strong> tag. This is for text that does have special importance. A word like Warning!, followed by a message of caution, could be placed in the Strong style.

These appear to be the only styles in Word that are semantic. Be aware that other styles available by default, such as Subtle Emphasis or Intense Emphasis, are, despite their names, purely decorative and will not convey semantic meaning.