Creating Accessible Documents.pptx
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Part 2 of a 3-part presentation prepared for the 2021 eLearning Summer Institute at Bellevue College, Bellevue, WA. Tips for creating accessible documents in Microsoft Word using Styles and templates.
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Creating Accessible Documents.pptx
- 1. CREATING ACCESSIBLE DOCUMENTS eLearning Summer Institute 2021
- 2. About this file This file is intended to be used with its associated Word document. Descriptions are in the Notes area of each slide. This slide is hidden. The thumbnail for this slide in the navigation panel on the left appears darkened. You can see this slide, but it will not be shown in your Slide Show, print, or export to PDF.
- 3. C. Blaise Mitsutama blaise.mitsutama@belllevu ecollege.edu LMS Administrator / Instructional Designer Tombolo Institute at Bellevue College Bellevue College Community Education
- 4. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Attributed to Bill Gates
- 5. Agenda • Page Headers and Footers • Using Styles • Table of Contents • Ordered Lists • Color and meaning • Contrast for legibility • Applying Table Styles Styles and Accessibility • Word templates (.dotm) • Template files (.docx) • Style Sets Using templates
- 6. Session Objectives 1. Use Styles for Accessible content 2. Create Accessible templates 3. Create and apply Style Sets
- 7. My 4-Step Process 1. Plan the document. 2. Find an existing Style Set or modify the Styles in the default new document. 3. Create the document using Accessibility techniques. 4. Run the Accessibility Checker on the document and make necessary corrections and changes.
- 8. Styles are the key to Accessibility in Word
- 9. Styles vs. Direct Formatting Word Styles ◦ Accessed from the Styles group or the Design tab> Document Formatting group on the Word Ribbon. ◦ Affect all elements to which the Style is applied anywhere in the document. ◦ Creates Accessible content. Direct Formatting ◦ Accessed from the Font group and the Paragraph group on the Word Ribbon. ◦ Affects only the elements to which the format is applied. ◦ Doesn’t create Accessible content.
- 11. Tip: Page Headers and Footers ◦ Use Insert tab > Header & Footer group to create your headers and footers. ◦ Some screen readers can’t read page headers or footers, so include any vital information elsewhere in the document.
- 12. Tip: Using Styles ◦ Use Styles instead of Direct Formatting whenever possible. ◦ Use Heading Styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) for navigation
- 13. Tip: Create a Table of Contents for long documents ◦ A Table of Contents requires Heading styles.
- 14. Tip: Ordered lists ◦ Use Word’s list features to create numbered or bulleted lists. ◦ You can use either the Home group > Paragraph group list tools or the Styles lists.
- 15. Creating a template ◦ Save your formatting changes as a template to make it easier to create subsequent documents.
- 16. DEMO: STYLES
- 17. Troubleshooting Styles ◦ Use View tab > Draft view to quickly identify the styles in your document. ◦ Use the Style Inspector (dialog launcher for the Styles group) identifies whether paragraph or character styles are used. ◦ Use Reveal Formatting (in the Style Inspector) to compare formatting in text. ◦ Use [Ctrl]+[Spacebar] to remove direct formatting while retaining Styles.
- 19. Creating Accessible Tables ◦ Create basic tables with column headers. ◦ Don’t use tables to format your document. ◦ Avoid merging cells.
- 20. DEMO: TABLES AND TABLE STYLES
- 21. Color and conveying meaning Example 1 Example 2 Read chapter 4, pages 36-39. IMPORTANT: Read chapter 4, pages 36-39. Example 3 Example copied from “Contrast and Color Accessibility.” WebAIM. https://webaim.org/articles/contrast/.
- 23. Contrast for legibility Column 1 Heading Column 2 Heading Column 3 Heading R1C1 R1C2 R1C3 R2C1 R2C2 R2C3 R3C1 R3C2 R3C3 Column 1 Heading Column 2 Heading Column 3 Heading R1C1 R1C2 R1C3 R2C1 R2C2 R2C3 R3C1 R3C2 R3C3
- 24. Templates .DOCX ◦ A standard PowerPoint file. ◦ Can be saved in any location. ◦ Must remember to change the file name when creating new documents. .DOTM ◦ A Word template file. ◦ Will be saved in the Office Templates folder. ◦ Can be accessed in PowerPoint’s File > New > Custom > Custom Office Templates area. ◦ Automatically opens as an unnamed file. Style Sets ◦ Formatting only ◦ Can be accessed in PowerPoint’s Design > Document Formatting > Style Set gallery ◦ Saved in C:Users<username>AppDataRo amingMicrosoftQuickStyles
- 26. Circling back 1. Use Styles for Accessible content 2. Create Accessible templates 3. Create and apply Style Sets
- 27. QUESTIONS?
Editor's Notes
- THE PROBLEM Creating Accessible documents requires using the Styles in Microsoft Word, but many people don’t know how to use Styles. THE SOLUTION In this presentation, I’ll cover how to use Styles and their value for any type of document. NOTE: There’s a lot to cover in this presentation, so please add your questions to the chat or jot them down. I’ll answer questions at the end of the presentation. If I can’t get to all of the questions, I’ll respond after the event.
- There are three Word files associated with this presentation: Creating Accessible Documents_blank_new_file.docx A blank Word file. Creating Accessible Documents_NOT ACCESSIBLE.docx A sample Word file with Accessibility issues. Creating Accessible Documents.docx The same sample Word file with no Accessibility issues. To make the hidden slides visible, Right-click on the hidden slide. Click the Hide Slide toggle option.
- I’ve tried to include information in this session that you may not have learned elsewhere and that I hope will make creating Accessible documents easier and less stressful. In the time we have, I can only give you an overview and specific tips. You’re likely to find that there are questions you won’t have until you’ve tried to make your own documents Accessible. We’ll cover the following topics: Styles and Accessibility Page Headers and Footers Using Styles Table of Contents Ordered Lists Color and meaning Contrast for legibility Applying Table Styles Using templates Word templates (.dotm) Template files (.docx) Style Sets What isn’t covered in this session Alt Text Meaningful hyperlinks I’ll present the information in this slide deck and do short demonstrations in a Word document.
- In this session, I’ll be sharing techniques to make your documents Accessible focusing most attention on using Styles in Word. I spell “Accessible” and “Accessibility” with a capital “A” to specify the features required by law and use the lowercase spelling for the general definition of these words. This is simply a personal convention. The Session Objectives are: Use Styles for Accessible content Create Accessible templates Create and apply Style Sets
- This is my 4-step process. Your process may look different. There’s a fifth step if I save the file as a template.
- I’m going to start this presentation by saying that you can’t create an Accessible document without using Styles in Word. In fact, you can’t create any Word document without Styles. They specify how every element in your document will be formatted. Every document, including the blank “new” document uses Styles. The default template that is used for new documents is called normal.dotm. If you edit and save Style elements to normal.dotm, those changes will apply to all future documents you create. If you choose to customize normal.dotm settings, remember that these changes are local to your instance of Word. You can also create Word templates for custom documents.
- In addition to Styles, another way of changing the format of text in Word is called “direct formatting.” This is the way that most Word users format documents. But it’s inefficient and isn’t Accessible. This slide compares Styles and Direct Formatting. Most people habitually use Direct Formatting. This means that creating Accessible Word documents requires changing the way you habitually format documents. The key difference between Word Styles and Direct Formatting is that Styles affect all styled elements anywhere in the document while Direct Formatting only affects the elements to which the format is applied. You can think of Styles as global and Direct Formatting as local.
- Heading styles When creating your document, it isn’t enough to use Direct Formatting to make section headings or other content elements visually distinctive from the rest of your text. Screen readers won’t recognize this formatting as having special meaning. The Heading styles add code to the section header that screen readers will interpret as separating the text that follows from the previous text. They can also be used to display an outline view of the document that’s more easily navigated by both learners who use screen readers and those who don’t.
- Learners can use a Table of Contents to quickly scan the topics covered in a long document. Each item in the Table of Contents is a hyperlink to a location in the document. Screen readers can do the same for learners who have low vision or who are blind.
- We’ll cover templates later in this session.
- Draft view If you don't see the styles listed to the left, enable this feature as follows: Click the File tab and choose Options. In the left pane, select Advanced. In the Display section, change the Style Area Pane Width In Draft And Outline Views option from 0" to something larger, such as 1". Click OK. ---------------- “Three ways to expose formatting inconsistencies in a Word document.” Susan Harkins. TechRepublic. November 28, 2016. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/three-ways-to-expose-format-inconsistencies-in-a-word-document/
- The examples on this slide show three ways that you can convey meaning that are not limited to using color. Example 1 shows the use of a key or legend column added to the table to clarify the meaning of the colors. Example 2 adds the word “Important” to text in red font. Example 3 shows different ways to format colored shapes to indicate a meaning or value associated with each colored item.
- Ensure that text and graphics are understandable when viewed without color.
- I’m using tables in this example, but contrast problems can happen in images, graphs and charts, text, SmartArt, and other content elements. Low contrast can result from color choices, transparency, shadows, saturation, or hue. Someone who is colorblind, for example, may not only have trouble distinguishing among colors, but may also not be able to perceive differences in color values. The table on the left has Accessible contrast and the table on the right is not Accessible due to low contrast.
- Templates make creating Accessible documents easier because you don’t have to continually reformat the basic elements of your document. The word “template” means different things to different people. For example, a template may be a fully-formed documents that has replaceable sections of content. Or it may be a document shell that has pre-formatted elements that only display when triggered or selected. Your document templates might include – only of the Style Set you’ve designed, boilerplate text and graphics, sections that you routinely include in your documents. No matter what your “master” template looks like, you have three choices for saving it. Save a standard .docx file. Save a .dotm template file. Save a Style Set.
- Use Styles for Accessible content The key difference between Word Styles and Direct Formatting, which is that Styles control formatting throughout an entire document and Direct Formatting is local to individual content elements. Important information should be provided in other, Accessible, areas of a document because some screen readers can’t read Page Headers and Footers. A Table of Contents built using section Headings should be used for long documents. Word’s list features should be used to create numbered or bulleted lists. Create basic tables with column headers and don’t use tables to format your document. Don’t use color alone to convey meaning and review your content in grayscale or black and white to ensure that meaning is clear even if color isn’t a factor. Create Accessible templates Save your document Style as a template using either a standard .docx or a Word template file (.dotm). Create and apply Style Sets As an alternative to templates, you can create a Style Set.