Accessible PowerPoint presentations
Microsoft PowerPoint has many built-in features to help make your documents and presentations accessible. A few small changes to the way you work can make a huge difference to your users. Here are our top tips on making your PowerPoints accessible.
Accessible PowerPoint templates
To help you from the start, you can use an accessible template. Many of the standard PowerPoint templates aren’t accessible. Microsoft has pulled together a selection of the most popular accessible PowerPoint templates to get you started.
Slide titles
Include titles on every slide. Templates come with title sections as standard, make sure you don’t remove them. People using screen readers rely on these titles to find the information they need. Make sure the titles clearly explain what the slide is about.
A clear PowerPoint title explaining what the page is about
Colour contrast
When using colours as text or background, they must have sufficient colour contrast for people with vision impairments.
Use the Web Aim colour contrast checker to check if you have sufficient contrast. You should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. To get the hex colour code, open the colour palette, click on ‘more colours’ and go to the second tab called ‘custom’ – it is the number with # in front of it.
Insufficient colour contrast in a PowerPoint, confirmed in the WebAimContrast Checker
You can also use Colorsafe to help you find an accessible colour palette for your document. Read more about colour contrast.
Fonts
You should use a large font size for all presentations and documents. It must be a minimum of 18 points. You should only use Sans Serif fonts like Verdana, Calibri, Arial and Tahoma, which are designed to be more accessible. Don’t use any cursive or decorative fonts and avoid using italics or underlining in your formatting.
Inaccessible fonts can be much more difficult to read, as it can be hard to distinguish between different letters and characters. Read more about fonts.
Alternative text
Alternative text, often referred to as alt text, is a short description of an image for screen readers to read out loud. Make sure every image has alt text or is marked as decorative where appropriate.
To add alt text in PowerPoint, right-click on the image and select ‘view alt text’. Avoid using the ‘generate alt text for me’ feature as it is rarely useful.
Adding alt text in PowerPoint
Reading order
The content in your slides needs to be in the correct reading order for when it is read out loud. You can view and edit the reading order under Review > Check Accessibility > Reading Order Pane.
Objects are listed in the order that the screen reader will read them. The number next to each object tells you which order they are in. Objects without a number will be skipped because they are marked as decorative. If the objects are in the wrong order, people using screen readers will have a difficult time understanding the slide. Drag the objects up and down to rearrange them.
The Reading Order Pane in PowerPoint
Descriptive links
Screen reader users often navigate a page or document using links. The screen reader will read out the links on the page, but not the text surrounding it. Link text needs to clearly say where the link is going, rather than just saying ‘click here’, which means nothing to the user. Instead, you should provide short text to describe where the link is going, which should make sense when taken out of context.
Instead of:
“To view our latest research, click here.”
Write:
"View our latest research."
PowerPoint accessibility checker
PowerPoint has a built-in accessibility checker. It should be used whether you’re doing a presentation or creating a document. Find the checker under Review > Check Accessibility. This will highlight any issues and how to fix them.
The accessibility checker in PowerPoint
Accessible PDFs
If you are sharing your presentation, make sure you save it as an accessible PDF first. To save as a PDF, select File > Save As Adobe PDF. This will ensure any of the accessibility work you have done is carried over to the PDF.
Just because you have done the above steps and saved your document as a PDF it doesn’t guarantee your document is completely accessible. It does however go a long way to help people with disabilities or people using screen readers to read your content.
Subtitles for presentations
PowerPoint can transcribe your words automatically as you present and display them on-screen as you talk. To set this up, go to Slideshow > Subtitle Settings. To change the display of the captions, select ‘More Settings’. Make sure you use sufficient colour contrast and a large enough font.
Subtitles during a PowerPoint presentations
