Accessible Documents
If we post or link to a document—whether we created it or not—we're responsible for its accessibility. This includes documents hosted on external sites or created by third parties, even if they’re not part of the umn.edu domain.
For documents owned or managed by external sources, consider reaching out to the creator to ask about their accessibility plans or available alternatives. They may already have a remediated version or be able to provide one.
Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
Both Word and PowerPoint have built-in accessibility tools to help you scan for and fix common accessibility errors. To run an accessibility check:
- Go to the Review tab
- Click on Check Accessibility
A panel will appear showing a summary of accessibility issues and suggestions for fixing them.
Alt text
Images with missing alternative text (alt text) will appear in the accessibility panel after running the scanner. It will outline the image it is currently assessing and give you an option to write your own alternative text or use AI to generate it.
The AI-generated alt text can jump start your alt text, but a human needs to proofread it for accuracy and relevance.
When possible, the author/creator of the document is the best person to make the alt text. They understand the intention/purpose of the image, whereas an editor is only making an educated guess at their meaning.
Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides
The University offers Grackle, a Google Drive extension, to check the accessibility of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This tool can flag accessibility concerns and provide solutions for fixing them.
Please note that there is a separate Grackle extension for each Google file type. You must install the corresponding extension (e.g., Grackle Docs for Google Docs, Grackle Slides for Google Slides) before you can scan that file type for accessibility errors.
For more in-depth information and guides, visit the Grackle knowledge base.
PDFs
PDF accessibility can be verified using Adobe Acrobat Pro. The Office for Digital Accessibility (ODA) provides instructions on how to use Acrobat Pro to scan a PDF for accessibility. From the ODA page, navigate to the "Dos and Donts" tab and go to the "Test Accessibility" section.
Note: All PDFs must be scanned for accessibility—even if it was generated from a document that passed accessibility checks. The "Export to PDF" option does not guarantee that the result will be accessible.
Course Materials
If the PDF is a necessary part of a course, the instructor should think about ways to remediate the document. Depending on what is in the document, the easiest thing might be to convert to a Word doc or Google doc, make the accessibility fixes, and link to that instead.
If the PDF is not a required part of a course, the easiest/safest course of action is to not post it. The instructor might look at past data to see if students are even accessing the file. Or they could think of alternative ways to get the same message to students.
Get help with accessible course materials
If you have questions about making course materials accessible that weren't addressed on this page, please contact us at [email protected].