Accessible Documents


This resource provides information about common office documents and accessibility. Below are some handouts and supporting documents that were developed for an Accessible Documents Workshop offered at the University of Maine - Augusta.

In addition, we have been writing a series of articles about Accessible Documents for the Maine State Office of Technology (OIT). We are going to post all of the articles here as a resource to support anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

Accessible Documents Articles

Article 1: Accessible Word Processor Documents

Article 2: Accessible Spreadsheet and Presentational Documents

Article 3: Portable Document Format (PDF) Files and Accessibility

Article 4: Portable Document Format (PDF) Files and Accessibility - Part II (legacy PDFs and PDF Forms)

Article 5 - General Considerations about Web-based Communications

Article 6 - Media Documents

Article 7 - Web 2.0 Applications and Accessibility

Article 8 - Social Networking and Accessibility

Article 9 - A Look at the Future

Article 10 - Learning Management Systems

Handouts and Presentation

These documents/files are created in MS-Office 2003 and may require that program or plug-in to view

Accessible Documents Cover Sheet - MS-Publisher file

How to make an Adobe Acrobat file from Word doc - MS-Word Doc

How to use Headings and Styles - MS-Word Doc

How to add Alternative text to images in Word - MS-Word Doc

How to check the Language of the Word document - MS-Word Doc

How to check Tabled Information of a Word document - MS-Word Doc

Most Common Accessibility Errors - MS-Word Doc

Making Accessible Documents - MS-PowerPoint file

Sample of a PDF Form made with Adobe LiveCycle Design (with Print Button)

Sample of a PDF Form made with Adobe LiveCycle Design (without Print Button)

Screencaptures

Shockwave/Flash IconHow to insert an image into a MS-Word 2007 document (Requires Flash plugin) [Close captioned]

Shockwave/Flash IconHow to add ALT text to chart in MS-Excel 2007 document (Requires Flash plugin) [No Audio]

Shockwave/Flash IconHow to add ALT text to an image in MS-Powerpoint 2007 document (Requires Flash plugin) [No Audio]

Shockwave/Flash IconHow to add ALT text to an image in Adobe LifeCycle Designer (Requires Flash plugin) [No Audio]

 

Other Resources

Web Site Development Resources

These are the resources directly related to Article 5 - General Considerations about Web-based Communications

Images

WebAIM - Appropriate use of alternative text

Guild of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS) - Writing good ALT text (Excellent summary with place for comments)

Wikipedia - Alternative text for images

Jim Thatcher - text alternatives for images

Webcredible - Writing effective ALT text for images

Web Design Group (WDG) - Use of ALT texts in IMGs (Warning: this is long, complicated, and a bit dated)

Tables

WebAIM - Creating Accessible Tables

Jim Thatcher - Accessible tables

Accessify - Accessible Table Builder (actually builds the code for you)

evolt - Building Accessible Tables(old but interesting)

Maine CITE - My own example of layout tables and an example of a Data table

Forms

WebAIM - Creating Accessible Forms

Web Standards Project - Accessible HTML/XHTML Forms: Beginner Level

Jim Thatcher - Accessible Forms

HTML Dog - Accessible Forms

A List Apart - Prettier Accessible Forms (lots of CSS if you are interested)

Links

WebAIM - Introduction to Links and Hypertext

Captioning

Web Captioning General Information

WebAIM
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/captions/

Universal Design in Maine blog
http://udmlti.edublogs.org/2008/04/02/accessibility-of-web-20-video/

Media Access Group at WGBH Boston
http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/mag/resources/guides/mag_guide_vol7.html

Captioning Web
http://www.captions.org/

National Captioning Institute
http://www.ncicap.org/

Joe Clark’s website
http://joeclark.org/access/captioning/

Captioners/Captionists

Captioning Web – Search Engine
http://www.captions.org/services.cfm

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART)
http://www.cartinfo.org/

Captioning Services

Automatic Synch Technologies
http://www.automaticsync.com/caption/

CC Maker
http://www.ccmaker.com/

CaptionMax
http://www.captionmax.com/

Captionate – Flash video
http://www.buraks.com/captionate/

C-Print
http://www.ntid.rit.edu/CPrint/

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders
http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/caption.asp

National Association of the Deaf
http://www.nad.org/site/pp.asp?c=foINKQMBF&b=99547

Captioning Software

Captioning Web
http://www.captions.org/softlinks.cfm

WebAIM
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/captions/software.php

 

Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Training Resources

These resources are found on the Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Training page. If you have difficulty viewing the videos below, use this link to go to the source page.

Shockwave/Flash Icon Using accessibility features within Acrobat 8(SWF, 11.3M)

Shockwave/Flash Icon Assessing PDF files for accessibility (SWF, 7.5M)

Shockwave/Flash Icon Creating accessible PDF files (SWF, 16.4M)

 

Additional Training Documents

There are a number of additional training guides and resources on this Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Training resource page. I recommend visiting that site and downloading these for your reference.

 


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