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Authoring Accessible Documents

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

June 25, 2026

Hosted by Travel Oregon

Facilitated by Jen Macias De La Parra, Accessibility Consultant, CPACC

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Accessibility check

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Any digital materials I share in this presentation will include:�

Added alt text to images
Checked headlines, outline, and reading order of slide layouts
Checked color contrast
Brief visual descriptions will be provided of informative images

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Agenda

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Welcome and Why This Matters
The Accessible Source File Mindset
Source File Structure: Microsoft Word + Acrobat Pro
Exporting Accessible PDFs
Alt Text in Practice
Accessibility Checklist
Q&A

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What to expect

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Real-world demos �using Microsoft Word and Acrobat Pro
Practical alt-text guidance �using industry materials
Guidance on when to handle it yourself �vs. when to flag it for the design team

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Digital Accessibility �Overview

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Welcome!

— Why this matters

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Digital Accessibility

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Digital accessibility means authoring, designing and publishing digital content, tools, and technologies so that people of a range of abilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with them — equally and independently.

This includes:

Websites and web apps
Mobile apps (iOS, Android)
Software apps/programs
Digital media (videos, audio, interactive content)
Electronic kiosks and digital displays, and more
Digital documents �(PDFs, Word docs, presentations)

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Disabilities are a Sizeable Minority

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1 in 4�adults in the U.S. lives with a disability

People with disabilities make up to 20% of the population size at any given time.

Myth: A11y benefits only a small minority. This is false.

People with disabilities make up to 20% of the population at any given time.- Deque�
Over 61 million U.S. adults, or 1 in 4, report having a disability - CDC�https://www.cdc.gov/disability-and-health/articles-documents/disabilities-health-care-access.html

Alt Text Example:

Open up the alt text panel to show the decision-making here.
“A horizontal row of four shapes: three purple circles and one red-orange diamond.”
Vs
“A horizontal sequence of four shapes: three purple circles and one red-orange diamond in the third position representing how 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. lives with a disability.”�
A good rule of thumb for alt text is that it should describe what the image conveys, not add information the image doesn't contain on its own. If a viewer couldn't infer the "1 in 4" meaning from the graphic alone, that context might be better placed in the slide body text (which also benefits everyone, not just screen reader users).��

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Destination Stewardship

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If the documents we produce aren’t accessible, we’re already closing the door before anyone arrives.

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Public-Facing Document Formats

Today’s webinar draws upon questions you answered upon registration. When it comes to public-facing document formats, PDFs lead by a significant percentage.

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47%

share as PDF documents

18%

share as Word documents

12%

share as Google docs/sheets

8%

share Excel spreadsheets

3-5%

JPG/PNG, Website, Social Media, Canva, Tableau/Dashboards

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Tools Used to Author Documents

Today’s webinar draws upon questions you answered upon registration. When it comes to authoring documents the most common tool used is Microsoft Word.

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24%

author with Microsoft Word

18%

author with Google Doc/Sheets

17%

author with Adobe Acrobat

14%

author with Microsoft PowerPoint

11%

author with Canva

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Training Goals

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Integrate accessible authoring practices into your workflow
Develop a new export habit

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The Accessible Source File�Mindset

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Goal: Shift the mental model

— Accessibility starts in the source file, not after the export

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Ideal Use of Accessibility Features

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Authoring Doc

Published PDF

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PDFs Inherit Accessible Elements

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Authoring Doc

Published PDF

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Accessibility Features at the Source

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Authoring Doc

Published PDF

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Accessibility Starts in the Source File

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Many of your documents begin as a Word Doc, Google Doc, or PowerPoint file before being converted into PDF.
Integrating accessibility early in the authoring process makes that conversion smoother.
Building accessibility in from the start eliminates the need for remediation altogether.

Consider the experience:

“Untagged PDF documents are very annoying and difficult to use for people who cannot see and need to use screen readers in order to discover their content.”

- Denis Boudreau, Deque

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Accessible authoring from the start means �no remediation, no rework—just documents that work for everyone.

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Support all the ways people consume digital information

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Visual

All images presented on screens, videos, text, websites, captions

Audio

Music, speech, notification chimes

Haptics

Physical reminders of notifications or interactions

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What Makes and Breaks �Document Accessibility?

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What Breaks Document Accessibility?

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Missing or incomplete document titles
Missing or incomplete alt text for images
Absent or inconsistent content structure
No language indicators
Non-intuitive navigation patterns

Missing or poor document titles – The title is the first information that is conveyed to screen reader users when opening a PDF document. This information is important for them to validate which document they’re currently viewing.�
Missing or poor alternate text for image - sGraphical elements like pictures, icons, illustrations, charts, and the like convey information that only exists in a graphical format. When informative images are not described in text, this content is lost to screen reader users. On the other hand, decorative images need to be ignored by screen readers, in order to reduce noise.�
Missing or poor content structure – The general structure of a document, including such components as paragraphs, lists, and headings, is normally represented visually, thus helping users understand how a document is organized. Screen reader users, being unable to see the visual formatting of a document, cannot rely on this information to understand its organization. Users need that visual organization conveyed semantically, using PDF tags. �
4. Missing or poor language indicators – Screen readers cannot guess which language the content of a PDF is in. �
Missing or poor navigation patterns – Users will normally rely on their sight to quickly navigate in a document, isolate the section they’re interested in and jump directly to it. Without the ability to see the pages and using a screen reader, it is not possible to jump directly to a precise position on the page, without having listened to all the preceding content. In order to make it easier for users to navigate through a document, navigation pattern

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What Makes Document Accessibility?

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Descriptive, meaningful document titles
Clear, informative alt text for meaningful images
Well-defined content structure with headings
Accurate language indicators
Consistent, intuitive navigation patterns

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Microsoft�Word

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Goal: Build practical Word habits that carry through to final PDFs

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Heading Styles

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Heading Styles (8 min)

Show the Styles panel — demonstrate applying H1, H2, H3 instead of bold + font size
Why it matters: screen readers use heading structure to navigate documents
DEMO: Open a sample doc — show broken structure vs. correct heading hierarchy
Common mistake: using bold text to fake a heading

Headings act as an outline or interactive table of content for a document in the sense that they enable assistive technology users to jump from one part of the content to another, as long as these headings are tagged properly. It is therefore crucial to make sure headings are semantically defined in the authoring tool using styles rather than simply changing their visual presentation with varying font sizes, font faces, and colors to make them look like headings.�
Accessible documents use headings to convey the logical structure of their content. Using headings hierarchically and avoiding skip levels helps users of assistive technologies make sense of the content structure. Such users can then rely on a logically organized outline to jump directly to the content they want to read.�
It is most efficient to identify headings in the authoring software rather than in Acrobat Pro, because styles applied in this way will then systematically be applied to all other text strings marked as headings, increasing general consistency in presentation and layout. Headings can always be added or fixed in Acrobat Pro after conversion but, again, will prove much more time consuming if only handled once the conversion process is completed.

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Lists

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Lists (3 min)

Always use Word's built-in list styles — never manually type bullets or dashes
DEMO: Show Insert > List vs. manual bullet character

Lists of items should be properly formatted in the authoring tool with list tags, so assistive technologies can express the relationship between list items and allow users to navigate from one list to another, or from list item to list item. Simply using line breaks to separate list items is not adequate, as structure (or lack thereof) does not programmatically translate to assistive technologies.

The easiest way to create lists is to format them properly using list markup and styles in the authoring tool before conversion (ordered or unordered). Acrobat Pro can be used to tag lists after conversion as well, but only regular unordered lists are available in PDF (it is impossible to semantically tag ordered lists in PDF). Once converted to PDF, ordered lists will simply be considered as unordered lists. To turn an unordered list back into an ordered list, authors will need to manually add a number in front of each list item, as part of the list item.

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Tables

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Alt Text

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Accessibility Checker

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Questions�& Answers

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

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Exporting Accessible �PDFs

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Goal: Establish a new export you can immediately use

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Export vs. Print to PDF

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Hyperlinks

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Write descriptive link text.

Descriptive link text helps screen reader users and people with cognitive disabilities differentiate between links.

Avoid:

“link to…”
“click here”
“read more”

Hyperlinks (1 min)

A link MUST have programmatically determinable text.
The purpose of each link SHOULD be able to be determined from the link text alone.
The link text SHOULD NOT repeat the word "link."
The full hyperlink SHOULD be included in the document.

More:

links added in the PDF document with not be visually indicated; this might create discoverability issues for sighted users. Therefore, adding links in the document source rather than waiting until after the conversion process is completed is always preferable.�
Poor link text such as “click here” or “read more” is often an issue for users who can’t see the context of the page. Sometimes, in order to make sure the links’ purpose remains clear out of its context, it is necessary to compensate with complementary information beyond the visible link text. While this would normally be achieved using aria-label or off-screen CSS positioning in a regular HTML file, doing this in a PDF document requires hiding the supplemental information behind the links. This can only be achieved using the alt text property in Acrobat Pro – one of the rare cases where part of the mark up needs to be handled after the conversion process.�

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Quick Check in Acrobat Pro

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Questions�& Answers

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

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Alt Text�In Practice

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Goal: Understand how to approach alt text

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What is Alt Text?

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Alt text is a concise, informative description of visual content that makes images accessible to more people, including screen reader users, people with cognitive disabilities, and people with limited internet bandwidth.

Resource: �How to write an image description by Alex Chen

�

Alt Text �= Short Text Alternative

Use for: Simple, informative images
Length: Brief (typically 150 characters or less)
Purpose: Conveys the same information and serves the same purpose as the image
Examples: A photo of a person, a simple icon, a product image

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What is an Image Description?

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A written caption that describes the essential information in an image.

Image descriptions can be applied to any visual content—photos, graphics, gifs, and video.

Resource: �How to write an image description by Alex Chen

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Image Description�= Extended/Longer Description

Use for: Complex images that �can’t be fully described briefly
Length: As long as needed to reasonably convey information
Purpose/Examples: Provides detailed info for images like charts, graphs, infographics, diagrams, and data visualizations

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Demo: Photo

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Alt Text Example for a Photo

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Alt Text

“A smiling woman in a floral dress holds two pizzas; a white pizza topped with arugula and a pepperoni pizza, in a warm, sun-filled restaurant with wood-beam ceilings and diners in the background.”

Object: A woman in a floral dress holding two pizzas in a bright, wood-beamed restaurant dining room.

Action: Smiling while serving a white pizza topped with arugula and a pepperoni pizza.

Context: The warm, sun-filled busy restaurant with diners in the background, with a wine display visible near the entrance.

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Demo: Data Rich Images

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Image Description for Data Rich Image

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Image Description

Object: A horizontal stacked bar chart titled "Portland Region – Perceived Quality of Life Statements

Action: Displaying Portland region residents' level of agreement with five quality of life statements, rated on a scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)

Context: Across all five statements, the majority of respondents agreed or strongly agreed. Satisfaction with life in Oregon and achieving important life goals scored highest, with roughly 70% of respondents rating both a 4 or 5. Residents were least likely to agree that they would change nothing if they could live their life over, with only 42% rating that statement a 4 or 5.

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Demo: Maps

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Alt Text Example for a Map

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Alt Text

"A heat map of North America showing light pollution levels, with colors ranging from black and blue in low-pollution areas to yellow, orange, and red in high-density urban centers. The eastern United States shows the highest concentration of light pollution."

Object: A heat map of North America

Action: Displaying light pollution levels using a color gradient

Context: Colors range from black and blue in rural, low-pollution areas to yellow, orange, and red in high-density urban centers, with the eastern United States showing the highest concentration of light pollution

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Demo: Decorative Images

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Accessibility�Checklists

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

— Checklist

— New export habits

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Checklists

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Microsoft Word Accessibility Checklist by Deque
PowerPoint Accessibility Checklist by GSA
PDF Accessibility Checklist by University of Illinois

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Five Export New Habits: Word Documents

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Use heading styles
Write alt text for meaningful images
Write descriptive links for text
Define header rows in tables
Export to PDF: never Print to PDF

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Five Export New Habits: PowerPoint

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Use style layouts
Check reading order
Define header rows in tables
Write descriptive links for text
Write alt text for meaningful images

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Resources

Getting Started

→ Tips for Getting Started

→ Accessibility for Teams

Accessible PDFs

→ Requirements for an Accessible PDF

→ Accessible PDFs: Common Barriers

Alt Text

→ Authoring Meaningful Alt Text

→ How to Write an Image Description

Understanding WCAG

→ W3C

→ Level A, AA, and AAA

→ Understanding 2.0, 2.1, 2.2

→ POUR Principles

→ How to Meet WCAG (Quick Reference)

→ Accessible PDFs: Authoring Best Practices

→ Accessible PDFs: Proper Conversion Process

→ Acrobat Accessibility Tutorials

→ Create Accessible PDFs in Microsoft Word

→ The difference between Alt Text and Image � Descriptions

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Questions�& Answers

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Digital Accessibility

Foundations

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Ask an Expert sponsored by Travel Oregon

Digital Accessibility Consultation

Get free, personalized guidance to make your destination’s digital experiences more welcoming for travelers.

What you get:

One-on-one consultation with an accessibility specialist
Tailored strategies for your websites, apps, social media, and booking systems
Follow-up summaries with resources and next steps

Jen Macias De La Parra

Experience Designer & Accessibility Consultant

Book consult through �Ask an Expert program ↗

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Digital Tourism Accessibility Snapshot

Complimentary Offer

From Zenyth Group

What’s included:

High-level digital accessibility risk summary
Booking engine and map accessibility check
Public-facing accessibility messaging review
Governance gap observations
3 prioritized action steps

Schedule a call with Daryn Harpaz to get started ↗

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Thank you!

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Jen Macias De La Parra

Experience Designer, Accessibility Consultant�

e / hola@jenmacias.com

s / www.linkedin.com/in/jen-macias

w / consultant profile