UWM Libraries Research and Course Guides: Accessibility Checklist: Documents

Best Practices for Document Uploads

Document Assets and Accessability

Documents that have not been checked and mediated for accessibility can create barriers for many different users. Additionally, accessibility crawl tools may not flag uploaded documents with issues. Please add documents to guides sparingly, and review and test all documents before uploading them as assets.

Best Practices for Documents

Create Microsoft documents-- Word, PowerPoint, Forms, etc-- and use the in-app accessibility checker before up uploading them
Add create information directly in LibGuides as rich text/html or link directly to an HTML webpage
Avoid PDF documents and replace them whenever possible. While creating accessible PDFs is possible, it is much easier to create and check other document types for accessibility.
Use UWM-authorized document apps (Microsoft) to give students a familiar and consistent experience

Overview of Microsoft Accessibility Checker
Before you send an Outlook email message or share a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, or OneNote notebook, run the Accessibility Checker to make your content easier for people to read and edit.
Create and Verify PDF Accessibility in Acrobat
You can use Acrobat to make PDFs meet the common accessibility standards, such as the latest version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Harvard Guide to Accessible PDFs
Creating and reviewing a PDF document for accessibility is a lot like creating an accessible webpage: it requires setting up descriptive tags, a logical document structure, and building structure into the document to establish reading order. This guide provides an in-depth look at how to mediate a PDF to meet accessibility standards.