Ensuring that all of your content is available to people across Case Western Reserve—and beyond—means making sure you're creating and uploading documents, images and video properly. We'll walk you through how to make sure your content is accessible across a variety of platforms.
Best Practices
No matter what kind of document you're creating, some general best practices apply:
- Try to avoid images with text embedded into them and instead write out the copy below the image.
- If this text is necessary (e.g. on a chart), it must have alt text added. In addition, we still recommend clearly explaining in the text below what the image shows.
- Use alt text to describe your image to people using assistive devices! Yes, even in your documents. Once you input an image, simply right click and select "Add alt text" (Word) or go to "Format Picture" and then "Alt Text" (PowerPoint).
- Not sure how to write it? Read our tips on providing meaningful alt text.
- Use headers—in the correct order—throughout your document. Headers not only make your document easier to scan and read, but they also allow screen readers to accurately scroll through information in your document.
- To add a header, go to the "home" tab in your document and select the proper heading or title given. You can change the font style if desired.
- For more information on headers, see our Page Structure section.