Accessibility: 5 Tips for Faster Document Formatting

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) specifies that all materials posted on websites be digitally accessible and inclusive. That means different things for different content. For example, web pages and attached documents such as PDFs need to be tagged for screen readers, with correct heading hierarchies, contextual links, and alt-tags for all images. Videos require either captioning or a transcript.

At YSM, we view this as an opportunity to enhance the readability and usability of all our digitally presented materials, including web pages, news articles, and documents that are shared on teaching platforms such as CANVAS.

Here are five tips to help you format ADA-compliant Word files and PDFs:

1. Use the styles ribbon and order your document’s headings in a hierarchy like an outline so that your pdf will be properly tagged upon export:
   1. Title
      1. Heading 1
         1. Heading 2
      2. Heading 1
2. Add contextual links! You should avoid using “click here” and make the link descriptive, (e.g. “Read more on the conference registration page.”) so that a person scanning links with a screen reader won’t hear: “click here, click here, click here…”)
3. Add a descriptive alt-tag to all your images. You can do this as a batch when you run your accessibility check or as-you-go by editing the image properties with a right-click.
4. If you have tables, make sure there is a header row labeling the data in each column.
5. Use the “Check Accessibility” feature under the “Review” tab before you save your document as a PDF.

These simple changes in how you use Microsoft Word will make it easier than ever to produce tagged PDFs, and may even save you time formatting your document.

Yale’s Usability and Web Accessibility website offers excellent resources for understanding what digital accessibility is and how do your part getting started.