When creating a Word document to use as PDFs on nsw.gov.au, it is necessary to ensure that the document meets accessibility requirements.
Note: Word documents which have been ‘printed as a PDF’ without running accessibility checks do not meet accessibility requirements. Additionally, documents which are printouts which have been scanned or photocopied as a PDF are not accessible as none of the words are machine readable.
Editing an accessible Word document
The below points should be covered when checking your Word document for accessibility issues:
- Open the original document. From the menu at the top of the page, click Review > Check accessibility. Correct errors by clicking through each accessibility issue, for example 'missing alt text'
- Accessibility checker does not pick up everything. You will also need to manually remove unnecessary line breaks and check all headings and lists
- Remove paragraph markers as screen readers will read these as 'blank'. If you still to use need spacing, highlight the line and click Home > Paragraph > Spacing
- Check that your headings are accessible by highlighting the text and ensuring the 'Styles' panel is set is ‘Heading1’ (not ‘Normal). Select the required text colour, bolding level and spacing. Then right click on Heading1 and click ‘update heading to match selection’.
- Ensure bullet lists are used for unordered lists
- Ensure links are correctly hyperlinked using descriptive text labels by highlighting the URL, right clicking, and editing the text label. Do not use ‘https://’.
- To save the document as a PDF, click File > Export > Create PDF. This will create a PDF file. Choose Options > Print all > Publish document. Add bookmarks if the document has more than 20 pages (similar to table of contents, but for a screen reader) Click OK.
Need any more help?
If you have any questions, or require assistance with anything mentioned on this article, submit a request via the webform.