Word Accessibility Checklist

Document Structure Text Appearance Color Images Tables Lists Checker to PDF Resources

Introduction

This checklist is meant to guide you in creating and remediating word documents to improve accessibility. In this instance, accessibility means that anyone can use your documents, including people with blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these (WCAG 2.1). The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) develops standards that have been adopted worldwide, most notably the WCAG2 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 2.1 AA, which ADA Title II Regulations updated to align with as of April 2026. Following these guidelines will also often make web content more usable to users in general.

Please note that this list will support you in technically making word documents more accessible. However, there will be instances in which making things more functionally accessible will require more fundamental changes. Notably, there are also documents or figures that will not be accessible to all possible users as standalone documents.

Checklist

Apply the items in this list to your Word doc as appropriate. The best way to incorporate accessibility into your Word documents is to build it into your processes as you create documents. Use this checklist as you build the habit to help ensure that you are not missing critical components.

Document Structure

Word has a number of tools to help you organize content and make it navigable for everyone and particularly those using screen readers, keyboard navigation rather than a mouse, etc.

• Create an accurate and concise internal title that describes the topic and/or purpose of the document.
  • Update the internal title under 'Properties' or 'Info' which is typically found under 'File'.
  • A student handout for an activity may be titled something such as the course name and the activity name or the content and 'student handout.'
• Ensure the document language is correctly identified.
  • Often, Word will automatically check the language of a document. Double check that it is correct under 'Language', which is found in the 'Review' ribbon.
  • Unless you are regularly adjusting the language you are using in Word, it is unlikely that you will need to check this for each new document.
• Use the Heading Styles to make your headings rather than only altering font size or appearance (e.g., bolding, italicizing).
  • To make different headings and adjust the appearance, use the 'Styles' gallery in the 'Home' ribbon or open the 'Styles Pane.'
  • If you are remediating a document, you can check whether headings are used at all in your document or whether the correct headings are used in the correct order (see next list item). You may review them by switching your document to outline view or opening the 'Navigation' sidebar under 'View' in the toolbar.
• Nest headings in the proper order with none in the hierarchy skipped.
  • The 'Heading Style' is under the 'Home' ribbon. Select the heading (heading 1, heading 2, etc.) that appropriately matches the way the content of each section of your document is nested.
  • Additionally, you may review (and change) the headings from the 'Styles Pane' (If you highlight text with your cursor, the pane will identify the current text style) or under the Outlining ribbon when your document is in Outline mode (The headings are referred to as 'Levels' (i.e., Heading 2 is Level 2) and you may adjust which Levels are shown on screen under 'Show Level' as another approach to reviewing your nesting order)
  • Using the Title and Subtitle styles is more necessary for report-type documents. Additionally, in considering what heading style to use in the hierarchy (heading 1, heading 2, etc.), consider whether it is a main section, subsection, and so on.
• Add a table of contents if your document is long (i.e., has many pages).
  • Use the internal 'Table of Contents' feature under the 'References' ribbon, as it will create a link from the table of contents to the headings in your document. This can also be another way to check if you've used and nested headings properly.
  • If you alter any headings or text within your document, ensure that you 'Update Table...' which you can find under the drop-down arrow that appears when you click into your table of contents.

Text Appearance and Spacing

• Use fonts that are simple, familiar and easily-parsed.
  • Examples of such fonts include Arial, Calibri, Helvetica, Veranda, Tahoma, and Times New Roman.
  • If you are considering accessibility for dyslexic readers, you might consider using a sans-serif, monospaced font.
• Create space with the internal line spacing tools rather than the return/enter key.
  • To update the spacing of a whole document (e.g., single-spacing), use 'Paragraph Spacing' under the 'Design' ribbon. To adjust spacing in a particular section of your document, adjust the 'Spacing' before or after the line you are considering using 'Line and Paragraph Spacing' (symbolized with up and down vertical arrows with horizontal lines just to the right of them) under the 'Home' ribbon.
  • If you wish to add space for students to respond to questions, one suggestion is to insert a textbox following the question and include directions to type their response in the following textbox.
  • Adjusting spacing following this method will decrease the likelihood that learners using screen readers will experience difficulties navigating your spacing.
• Write accurate and concise hyperlinked text that describes the URL destination.
  • Avoid non-specific, non-descriptive, or redundant link text such as "click here" or "link" or "here," and consider the following questions.
    • How will the link text sound to someone using a screen reader with voiceover? Be clear and concise about where the link will take the user.
    • Does the link text make sense out of context? Often while navigating using a screen reader, users will read from link to link without the surrounding text.
    • WebAIM also provides additional insight into the ways screen reader users navigate links that may be helpful in choosing appropriate link text.

Color and Contrast

• Choose text, highlight, and background colors that have a sufficiently high contrast.
  • Use a tool such as the WebAIM Contrast Checker to check the contrast. If you click on the rectangle under 'Color Picker,' a pop-up menu provides you with an eyedrop tool, so you do not need to know the hex value. (If you are on a Windows machine, the eyedropper tool will only work outside your browser if you are using Chrome or Edge.)
  • For small fonts (smaller than 18 pt or bolded 14 pt), the contrast ratio should be 4.5:1 between text and its background/highlight.
  • For large fonts (larger than 18 pt or bolded 14 pt), the contrast ratio should be 3:1 between text and its background/highlight.
• Select colors for adjacent non-text objects (e.g., in figures or images) that have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1.
  • Use a tool such as the WebAIM Contrast Checker to check the contrast. If you click on the rectangle under 'Color Picker,' a pop up menu provides you with an eyedrop tool, so you do not need to know the hex value. (If you are on a Windows machine, the eyedropper tool will only work outside your browser if you are using Chrome or Edge.)
• Use other visual elements in addition to color to emphasize or differentiate text or objects.
  • For example, if you are differentiating some text using color, also bold it as this will be readable for those with colorblindness or those using screen readers.
  • For additional support, refer to the University of Michigan's Accessible Color Use Examples.

Images and Figures

• Write accurate and concise alt text for images or figures that describe the content or purpose and mark decorative images as 'decorative.'
  • There are different ways to access an image's alt text: right-click the image and select 'edit alt text...' from the pop-up menu or select the image and find 'Alt Text' under the 'Picture' ribbon. Alt text is necessary to describe the content or the purpose of the image and will be present if the image fails to load or if the user uses a screen reader.
  • You can read about what makes alt text effective in WebAIM's Alternative Text documentation.
  • Additionally, if you have particularly complex visualizations, do your best to provide alt text and flag these for the educator(s)/facilitator(s) so that they may know when/where to alter their use of your document in order to meet their students' needs.
• Do not use images of text in order to convey information.
  • This is inaccessible to assistive technologies and also prevents changing fonts which may be necessary or valuable for people with visual or learning disabilities/impairments.
• Share data tables for graphs and data visualizations.
  • These may be provided in an appendix or as a csv file or spreadsheet which could allow a visually impaired learner to dig deeper into a graph than whatever textual alternative is provided.
• Review the Color and Contrast section of this page to ensure that the guidelines are adequately addressed by your images and figures.

Tables

Tables are used when they are the clearest and most concise choice for conveying information while remaining as simple as possible.

• Do not use tables for formatting or layout purposes.
  • Use the accessible formatting options provided in the Document Structure section of this list or refer to Microsoft's documentation for achieving the format or layout you wish to achieve.
• Similarly, don't use split cells, merged cells or empty cells for visual appeal.
  • Tables should be simple. If the table isn't visually appealing, change the table properties or the way you are presenting the information without taking inaccessible "shortcuts."
• Mark the first row as a Header Row.
  • You can find this as a checkbox under the 'Table Design' ribbon when you are in a table. This will indicate that the top row consists of headings for the columns.
• Make the Header Row repeat at the top of each page if a table spans multiple pages.
  • While in the header row of a table, either right click and select 'Table Properties' from the pop-up menu or go to the 'Table Layout' ribbon and select 'Properties'. From the 'Table Properties' pop-up, navigate to 'Row' and select "Repeat as header row at the top of each page."
  • With this checked, when your table is split across tables, the header row will show at the top of the table on the new page.
• To more complex tables, add alt text that describes what is in the columns and rows.
• Review the Color and Contrast section of this page to ensure that the guidelines are adequately addressed by your table

Lists

• Create lists using the bulleted, numbered, or custom list features.
  • In the 'Paragraph' group under the 'Home' ribbon, there are three different buttons to make a list. They are symbolized by three lines with bullets, numbers or a combination of numbers and letters to the left.
  • When making long lists or multiple lists, attend to whether you want them to be formatted as a separate list or a long single list. You can alter this in the pop-up menu that appears when you select and right-click a bullet/number in your list.

Internal Accessibility Checker

All accessibility checkers have limitations regarding the accessibility issues that they are able to identify. Manually check (using this checklist!) your documents to ensure accessibility.

• Use Word's internal accessibility checker to identify particular access issues and address them as described in the Warnings or Errors section in the Accessibility pane.
  • Find the checker as 'Accessibility Check' under 'Tools' and/or 'Review'
  • Note that this will not catch all errors. For example, if you are remediating a document, and it has no headings, Word's accessibility checker won't identify that as an issue. But it is. You should at least use a Heading Style 1 or Title Style for the title of your document.

Converting to PDF

We strongly recommend against converting your documents to PDFs. However in the event that you really must, you will need to use a method that preserves the accessibility of your document.

Select 'Save As' under 'File' in the toolbar, select PDF in the dropdown menu, and ensure that you check the option for 'Best for electronic distribution and accessibility'.

Do NOT use 'Print' and 'Save as a PDF' because it will make your document inaccessible. Please note that the 'Read Aloud' function is not the same as a screen reader. You may be able to use the Read Aloud function on a document that is not accessible to users with screen readers, and it is therefore not a check for an accessible PDF.

For additional guidance, refer to Microsoft's 'Create Accessible PDFs'.

Resources

For additional information about digital accessibility and additional resources, review SERC's Accessibility Guidelines and/or SERC's Why Make Teaching Accessible web page. Reviewing Microsoft's Word Document Accessibility Documentation may provide additional technical support, while reviewing the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines directly may provide additional support in understanding the motivation in making your documents more accessible.