Vance S. Martin, PhD

This handout will help you check for accessibility in PowerPoint2016 and offer a few pointers to keep in mind either as you are creating presentations, or after you have used the autochecker.

Within each Microsoft 2016 product there is a built in accessibility checker. On a Mac it can be found under the tools menu and then check accessibility. Mac users can now jump to page 3.

On a PC it can be accessed by going to the upper left corner of the page, and selecting the “file” option. The screen shot below shows where the “file” option is for PowerPoint on a PC. Your version of the products may differ slightly, and you may have different saved settings or toolbars than the image, but the “file” option is still in the same location, top left directly under the save icon.

Once you click the “file” option, you are taken to another screen. Most of you are probably familiar with this screen for saving the file, or perhaps converting it to pdf. But there are a few other options on this screen, one of them is “Inspect Document”, it is the middle option under “Info”.

If you click “Inspect Document”, three options appear, select the middle one, “Check Accessibility”.

You must make sure that the file you are trying to check is saved in a .pptx format, or a Word 2016 format. If it is not you will need to save it as such.

Selecting “check accessibility” will return you to your document, but now a new panel has appeared on the right side of the screen. It is called “Accessibility Checker”, and may have errors, warnings, or tips listed below it.

If you select one of these issues you will see at the bottom of the panel “Additional Information”. This information will tell you why you need to fix the issue, and how to fix the issue. Clicking on an issue will take you to it. Once you have fixed the issue it disappears from the list. Your goal is to work through this list until everything has disappeared.

Congratulations, you have made this presentation highly accessible. This means that you’ve corrected all the issues that a piece of software can find. This is equivalent to having Word check your paper for spelling and grammar errors. A writing instructor will find more issue which a piece of software cannot, but you’ve gone a long way towards accessibility.

Below I’ll give you some pointers which can help when you’re creating a new presentation, or going through an old presentation towards full accessibility. And many of the things I’ll mention will make your presentations “look” the same, but by using the functionality already built into PowerPoint, you can make the documents more accessible.

Color

While in Word documents it is important to consider colors which you might be using for emphasis, in PowerPoint it is important to consider the contrast between colors of the text and background. In general, you should attempt for a high contrast between the text and background and avoid combinations such as these:

  • Green & Red
  • Green & Brown
  • Blue & Purple
  • Green & Blue
  • Light Green & Yellow
  • Blue & Grey
  • Green & Grey
  • Green & Black

Reading Order

Reading order is just a matter of what gets read first, second, third. Probably you want the title to be the first item read, then the first item of your content, then perhaps the alt text on your picture, then the page number if you use them? Although perhaps some people want slide 5 read first then the title…. You can personalize however you want, but it is an issue which comes up often in the accessibility checker.

Fonts

Using a sans serif font such as Arial in a 14 pt size will increase readability on computer screens, projector screens and mobile devices. Over 90% of vision issues relate to limited vision loss, not complete vision loss. Increased font sizes and sans serif font will certainly help those readers.

Lists

Lists or outlines are a perennial favorite way of organizing content. But there are some things to keep in mind. If something occurs in order, use a numbered list. If order does not matter use bullets. And don’t force spacing by using extra returns, or other odd functions to force a look, go with what PowerPoint gives you or allows.

Alt text

Alt text is probably the biggest sticking point when thinking about accessibility. In general, you are adding a description to a picture, table, graph, or any image in a PowerPoint. Depending on what you need to add the alt text to, the methods vary. If it’s a picture you can right click on it, format the picture, and in the side panel which comes up there is a cross shaped icon in which you can enter the alt text. For a table you have to hover over the table to get the cross icon, right click on it, then select table properties and select alt text. The key is what you put in for alt text. It needs to be a description of what the picture, table or graph is. If it is a picture of Harry Truman, the alt text should be “Harry Truman”. If it is a picture of an atom the alt text might need to be much more descriptive of what the picture is showing. A key is to think more critically about what images we put in presentations, and what information we assume people will get out of the image.

Tables

Tables are problematic. They are created for tabular data, they are infrequently used for that. In the first example below it is shown as some people may use it, not how it should be used. Word will not like this and a screen reader will have fits. There are ways to layout a page in order to have someone add their name and address, this is not it. The second example is how a table should be setup, with headers and the required information below it. The table should still have alt text as well

Name
Address
City / State
Name / Address / City / State / Zip
John Smith / 1 First St / Chicago / IL / 60010
Robert Smith / 2 Second St / St. Louis / MO / 60011

Read out loud

Finally, read your presentation out loud to yourself. Yes, every word. There are lots of things we use, and assume, and do in our emails, and documents, and everyday lives. Screen readers however, follow the language rules given to it, even though you are sure that it should know better. So if you write Fri. It reads fry. If you write 7-10, it reads seven dash ten. If you write the acronym for the company Automation Systems and Solution, well that’s what gets read. So write out some characters, write out abbreviations and acronyms. Don’t use / to group people together, write out faculty and staff.