Previous

Next

Word

Completed

Microsoft Word helps you create documents, write with confidence, and collaborate in real time. Word has many features to help people of all abilities read and author documents.

Headings

Headings make text stand out and help people understand how your document is organized, in addition to providing navigational structure for people using screen readers. When you use Word's built-in heading styles or create your own and apply those styles to header text in your document, a person using a screen reader will be able to easily identify when a header is being used.

In summary, headings offer the following benefits:

• Enable easier, more efficient navigation with a screen reader
• Give context to the text around it
• Provide information about the structure of the document

To add a heading style:  

1. Type the text you want into a Word document.
2. Select the text you want styled as a heading.
3. Select Home > Styles (or press Alt + H, then L), then select the heading level you want, such as the Heading 1 button.

Note

Be attentive to which heading style you use and make sure they're properly nested in your document. The order of headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, etc.) is critical to informing screen reader users how to navigate.

Images

Images are a great way to add visual interest or include graphics in a Word document. There are three common types of images in Word documents:

1. Decorative
2. Simple
3. Complex

Information about non-decorative images needs to be communicated to screen readers with alternative text so that people with low vision or who are blind can understand what is contained in the image. Alt text should be purposeful and meaningful. It should also be limited to fewer than 150 characters.

Decorative images should be marked as such to tell screen readers to skip them. For example, you can mark a border or small icon intended only as a design element as decorative. To mark an element as decorative, select the "Mark as decorative" option instead of entering alt text.

To add alt text to an image:

1. Right-click or press the applications key when focused on an image or object and select View Alt Text.
2. Enter a description of the image in the Alt Text field or approve the AI-created alternative text.
3. Alternatively, the Accessibility Checker can generate a list of images that require alt text for you.

Links

Use meaningful link text rather than long web addresses. This makes links easier to understand for people who use screen readers. Avoid nonspecific display text such as "click here" or "learn more." People who use screen readers often pull a list of links for a given page they're visiting, so if every link has similar, generic text, the links are difficult to tell apart and less useful to the user.

To edit link text:

1. Select the text you want to turn into a hyperlink.
2. From the Insert tab, select Links > Link > Insert Link (or press Ctrl + K to open the Insert Hyperlink dialog).
3. Enter the web address into the Address field.
4. In the Text to display field, ensure the text is meaningful and identifies the purpose of the link.

Lists  

Bulleted and numbered lists provide proper structure and help people using a screen reader more easily navigate a document. People who use screen readers can navigate numbered or bulleted lists using keyboard shortcuts. If you don't correctly set your lists as numbered or bulleted, each list item will read as a simple string of text. This prevents someone using a screen reader from easily navigating the list.

To create accessible lists:

1. Select the Home tab.
2. In the Paragraph section, select Bullets to create a bulleted list or Numbering to create a numbered list.

Continue