Using Office’s Accessibility Checker

Office comes with an accessibility checker that can aid in checking for problems in your document. This tool makes it easy to identify problems in your document, and explains what needs to be fixed.

There are a couple of ways to open the accessibility checker. One way:

To start the Accessibility Checker, select the Review tab, then choose Check Accessibility.

The Accessibility Checker sidebar will appear to the right. The checker presents accessibility errors (e.g., images with no alternative text), warnings (e.g., unclear link text) and tips (e.g., layout tables are structured for easy navigation). Selecting an item in the report will highlight the issue within the slide. Information about the issue, and instructions on how to repair it, will also appear at the bottom of the sidebar.

It is a good idea to check ‘Keep accessibility checker running while I work’. The accessibility status of the document will be continuously shown at the bottom.

Another method to check document accessibility is:

1. Go to the File Tab and select Info
2. Click the Check for Issues button and select Check Accessibility.

Using Screen Readers

Office’s built-in accessibility checker is good, however, do not rely on ‘machine’ testing alone to test for accessibility. To obtain better testing results, try using a screen reader e.g. NVDA (Windows) or VoiceOver (built-in to MacOS). Turn your monitor off or turn the brightness to zero for a realistic experience.