Tips for creating accessible documents
About font types and size
- Use familiar sans serif fonts such as Arial, Calibri or Verdana
- Use a font size 11pt or larger.
- Avoid using all capital letters and excessive italics or underlines
About structuring your text
- Include ample white space between sentences and paragraphs
- Use paragraphs and headings
- Make use of bulleted lists
When adding visuals in your text
- Add alt text to images, such as pictures, smart graphics, shapes, charts, icons, videos, and 3D models, so that screen readers can read the text to describe the image to users who cannot see the image.
A so-called “thick description” helps to better understand the explanation: adding for instance feelings to actions in a certain context
Format of documents
- Preference for Word above PDF to make use of text-to-speech/braille possible
- If PDF is necessary, take this into account:
- Be sure the source document (often created in Word) has taken above guidelines into account
- The document title is viewable
- Good contrast between text and back ground
- All information is available for colour blind readers
- The document contains bookmarks making it possible to navigate
- Correct metadata
Accesibility checkers
You can use an accessibility checker, for instance in Microsoft Word (fill in ‘accessibility checker’ in the menu field ‘Tell me what you want to do…’) or Adobe Acrobat accessibility checker (PDF), to give insight about your documents.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
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Library update
Related:
- UM website about Accessibility
- UM Disability Support
- Library services for disabled users
Last updated: 02/04/21
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