Create Accessible Documents in Word, PowerPoint, & Excel

Presented at 9:00am in Plaza Ballroom D on Tuesday, November 16, 2021.

#34046

Speaker(s)

  • George Joeckel, Online Training Program Manager, Utah State University / WebAIM
  • Jonathan Whiting, Director of Training, Utah State University / WebAIM

Session Details

  • Length of Session: 5-6-hr
  • Format: Bring-your-own Device Workshop: Laptop with Microsoft Office 2016 or newer and Adobe Acrobat DC
  • Expertise Level: Beginner
  • Type of session: Pre-conference

Summary

Participants in this full-day workshop will review the fundamentals of creating accessible documents in three ubiquitous applications: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, & Excel. Participants will also review how to use Adobe Acrobat Professional to optimize the accessibility of well-structured PDF exports from these applications.

Abstract

Participants in this full-day workshop will review the fundamentals of creating accessible documents in three ubiquitous applications: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, & Excel. Participants will also review how to use Adobe Acrobat Professional to optimize the accessibility of well-structured PDF exports from these applications. Participants will engage in hands-on implementation through guided practice.

Participants will provided with a complimentary enrollment in an online, independent-study, video-based course that covers the workshop materials in greater detail: https://webaim.org/training/docs. Participants that demonstrate their mastery of the content through the successful completion of the online course's assessments will earn a Certificate of Completion. The online course also qualifies for 1 CEU from Utah State University (requires a $30 fee from USU Registrar's Office).

Keypoints

  1. People with disabilities may be impacted by Word, PowerPoint, Excel, & PDF docs created by default processes.
  2. Implementing focused accessibility principles and processes creates well-structured MS Office docs.
  3. PDFs created from well-structured MS Office files are more accessible and cost-efficient.

Disability Areas

Cognitive/Learning, Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Vision

Topic Areas

Accessible Educational Materials, Assistive Technology, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

George Joeckel

George is the Online Training Program Manager at WebAIM. He has a master’s degree in instructional psychology and technology, and over 20 years of teaching experience. Since 2008, he has developed online courses at Utah State University, and he joined the WebAIM team at the end of 2015. The Accessible Documents video-based course went online in July 2018. To date, more than 7,000 independent-study learners have participated in the training.

Jonathan Whiting

Jonathan is the director of training at WebAIM. His main passion is helping others learn to make the web more accessible to people with disabilities. Jonathan was also involved in the GOALS Project, a program to assist institutions of higher education in improving their accessibility system-wide. With a master's degree in instructional technology and over seventeen years of experience in the field of web accessibility, Jonathan has published dozens of articles, tutorials, and other instructional resources. He has traveled extensively to train thousands of web developers and other professionals who develop or maintain web content.