PowerPoint Accessibility Tips
Animations
- Keep any animations brief and simple
- Keep any slide transitions brief and simple
- Never use automatic slide transitions
- Use the notes section to supplement on-screen info, including text alternatives to charts and graphs
- Notes section not read by screen reader
Use slide layout templates
- Avoid using blank slides and placing content that doesn’t have a placeholder in the slide layout
Check sequence of text
- Text boxes not in the slide layout are usually read last by screen readers
- Use Outline View to check sequence and readable text
- Only text present in the outline will be read by screen reading software.
- Text boxes you've manually added to a slide must be manually put into the outline.
Alt text on images
- Alt tags should be a text alternative for the content shown as an image. An images alt text should be equivalent to the image itself.
- Every non-decorative image should have alternative text.
- Decorative images should have an empty alt tag (alt=”” in html).
Accessibility Checker
- Use PowerPoint’s built-in accessibility checker to check your PowerPoint presentations for accessibly issues automatically.
- Find the Accessibility Checker by going to File > Info > Check for Issues > Accessibility Checker