Accessibility, Electronic Documents, and Microsoft Office

• Section 508 and accessibility
• Regulations and guidelines, the Florida Statute
• What does it mean to be accessible?
• What is assistive technology?
• Computer use scenarios: persons with disabilities
• What is electronic document accessibility?
• What makes a document accessible?

Accessibility in Microsoft Windows

• Accessibility settings and options
• Accessibility tools and techniques

Accessibility in Microsoft Office

• Settings and options for improved accessibility
• Why keyboard-only navigation is important
• Using Office with assistive technology

The Importance of Document Structure

• What is a structured document?
• Most Office documents are unstructured
• How document structure affects accessibility
• Structure and accessibility: it’s up to the author

Accessible Word Documents

• What are Word styles?
• Creating styles: deliberately or automatically
• The role of templates: what is Normal?
• Using and applying styles
• Headings matter
• Pictures, drawings and other non-text elements
• Working with complex drawing objects
• Proper and improper use of tables
• Multiple columns and content linearization
• Bulleted and numbered lists and outlines
• Page headers and footers
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Data tables in a Word document
• Charts and graphs
• Embedded objects
• Setting document properties

Accessible Tables in Word Documents

• Reading & navigating tables with a screen reader
• The importance of column and row titles
• Non uniform tables: merged rows and columns
• Repeating heading rows across pages
• Creating accessible tables in Word

Determining Accessibility

• Viewing document structure in outline view
• Listening to a document with a screen reader
• Options for converting to HTML
• Using PDFMaker
• PDF conversion options and settings
• Converted tables always require work
• Testing the resulting PDF for accessibility

Accessible Excel Workbooks

• What makes a workbook accessible?
• Screen readers: reading & navigating workbooks
• Defining row and column titles
• Titles for different regions and worksheets
• Accessible charts

Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

• What makes a presentation accessible?
• Slide titles: title holders vs. textboxes
• Working with presentations in outline view
• Creating invisible but readable titles
• Using slide layouts and templates
• Grouping and ungrouping objects on a slide
• Working with charts and chart data
• Using tables in presentations
• Multimedia and other objects
• Slide properties
• Converting a presentation to HTML
• Other presentation alternatives