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Checklist for Making Accessible MS Office and PDF Documents

Making accessible documents in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or any other application requires that you follow a series of simple steps. We’ve formatted these steps in a checklist that can guide you in making a document accessible. Even if you do not use Microsoft Office to create your documents, the items on the first two pages of the checklist apply to virtually any document you may create.

Note: The checklist does not exhaustively cover all issues related to creating accessible documents. There may be divisional accessibility resources available to assist you with issues and applications not covered in the checklist. The checklist will change over time in response to community feedback and changes in the law.

The checklist was adapted from work done by the U.S. government’s CIO Council Accessibility Community of Practice and the Department of Education Accessibility Guides for Electronic Documents.

The University also has a license to SensusAccess, a tool which can help convert existing documents into a variety of accessible formats, including Braille output. It can be used in conjunction with the checklist to convert a document into a variety of formats, but cannot make a document accessible if it does not follow the checklist.
http://accessibility.jhu.edu/electronic-information-technology/checklist-for-making-accessible-ms-office-and-pdf-documents/
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