Accessible Microsoft Office Documents

Course Specifications:

Courseware: MS Office Accessibility

Software: Microsoft Office 2003

Course length: 1 day (Introduction half day session/Advanced half day session)

Course Description:

In this course you will learn how to use Microsoft Office 2003 and higher to create Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents that meet accessibility standards and can be used by assistive technology. Attendees will learn to identify common accessibility barriers encountered by people with disabilities within MS Office documents - images, forms, tables, spreadsheets, presentations and other document elements and structures.

Course Objective:

The objectives of this course are to:

  1. Understand common design techniques and barriers that they create
  2. Introduction to accessibility concepts
  3. Identify best practice in the creation of accessible MS Office documents
  4. Understand accessibility techniques employed in three common MS Office applications – Word, PowerPoint and Excel
  5. Create an accessible MS Word document, improve accessibility of PowerPoint file, redesign Excel spreadsheet
  6. Identify additional resources for further study

Prerequisites:

To ensure the successful completion of Accessible Microsoft Office Documents, we recommend students have a basic knowledge of MS Office 2003 (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).

Delivery Method:

Instructor led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured hands-on activities.

Course Content:

Introduction MS Office Accessibility

Lesson 1: Introduction

Topic 1A: What is Accessibility?

Topic 1B: Common barriers experienced by people with disabilities using electronic documents.

Topic 1C: Common themes for document structure, use of templates, graphics and images, tables and charts, font sizes and styles, etc.

Topic 1D: Posting MS documents to the Web

Lesson 2: MS Word

Topic 2A: Separating content from presentation

Topic 2A: Templates

Topic 2B: Font size

Topic 2C: Choosing styles

Topic 2D: Lists

Topic 2E: Hyperlinks

Topic 2F: Contrast

Topic 2G: Reading order

Topic 2H: Tables

Topic 2I: Images

Topic 2J: Forms

Topic 2K: Concepts are implemented through hands-on work with MS Word files

Advanced MS Office Accessibility

Lesson 1: MS PowerPoint

Topic 1A: Accessibility concepts in presentation slides

  1. The Slide Master
  2. Slide Layout
  3. Slide Outline
  4. Slide Notes
  5. Alternatives to image content (including graphs and charts)
  6. Considerations for Multimedia within PowerPoint Presentations
  7. Converting PowerPoint to an Accessible Format

Lesson 2: MS Excel

Topic 2A: Issues with Excel spreadsheets

Topic 2B: Working with charts and graphs

Topic 2C: Formatting

Topic 2D: Mapping the spreadsheet using regions

Topic 2E: Converting spreadsheets to accessible formats