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Document Accessibility Best Practices for Educators

Essential tips for creating accessible PDFs, Word documents, and other digital materials for your students.

Mitchell Meyer

Every day, educators create and share countless documents—lesson plans, worksheets, reports, and more. Ensuring these documents are accessible isn't just a legal requirement; it's a fundamental part of inclusive education.

Why Document Accessibility Matters

Consider these statistics:

  • 1 in 5 students has a learning disability
  • 7.7 million students receive special education services
  • Many students use assistive technologies like screen readers

When documents aren't accessible, these students face barriers that their peers don't encounter.

Creating Accessible Word Documents

Use Built-in Heading Styles

Instead of manually formatting text to look like headings, use Word's built-in heading styles:

  • Heading 1 for main sections
  • Heading 2 for subsections
  • Heading 3 for sub-subsections

This creates a logical document structure that screen readers can navigate.

Add Alternative Text to Images

Right-click any image and select "Edit Alt Text." Write a description that conveys the same information the image provides.

Good alt text: "Bar graph showing student reading scores increasing from 65% in 2022 to 78% in 2024"

Poor alt text: "Graph" or "image1.png"

Use Tables for Data, Not Layout

Tables should only be used to present data, not to control page layout. When you do use tables:

  • Include a header row
  • Keep the structure simple
  • Avoid merged cells when possible

Creating Accessible PDFs

PDFs can be particularly challenging for accessibility. Here's how to do it right:

Start with an Accessible Source Document

The easiest way to create an accessible PDF is to start with an accessible Word document and export properly:

  1. Create your document in Word following accessibility best practices
  2. Use File → Save As → PDF
  3. In the Options dialog, check "Document structure tags for accessibility"

Use Adobe Acrobat's Accessibility Features

If you need to remediate an existing PDF:

  1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro
  2. Go to Tools → Accessibility
  3. Run the Accessibility Checker
  4. Address each issue identified

Common Document Accessibility Issues

| Issue | Impact | Solution | | ---------------------- | -------------------------- | --------------------------- | | Missing alt text | Screen readers skip images | Add descriptive alt text | | Color-only information | Colorblind users miss data | Add text labels or patterns | | Low contrast | Difficult to read | Increase contrast ratio | | Scanned PDFs | Completely inaccessible | Use OCR and add tags |

Automating Document Accessibility

Manually checking every document is time-consuming. That's where automation comes in.

ClearLinks can:

  • Scan entire document libraries in minutes
  • Identify accessibility issues automatically
  • Remediate common problems with AI
  • Generate compliance reports for administrators

Next Steps

  1. Audit your most-used documents first
  2. Create templates that are already accessible
  3. Train staff on accessibility basics
  4. Implement automated checking tools

Need help making your district's documents accessible? Get in touch with our team.