Producing Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

Presentation Title

Make sure the file name and title (in the presentation metadata) describe the topic or purpose of the presentation. To find presentation metadata, navigate to File > Info > Properties > Title.

Slide Title

Each slide must have an informative title, which is usually the large text at the top of the slide. Slide titles provide an outline and improve navigation making your document more accessible. The title on each slide must be unique.

It is important to ensure the correct language is set in the presentation so that screen readers announce the presentation correctly. 

Presentation Language

In the US, the default language in a PowerPoint presentation is set to English. If the presentation’s primary language is not English, you should modify its language.

To modify a presentation’s language, go to Review > Language > Language Preferences. In the window, scroll down to “Office authoring languages and proofing” and select the language you wish to change it to (you may need to first install the language via the “Add a language” button). Press the OK button. Microsoft PowerPoint may prompt you to restart the application for the settings to go into effect.

Sections of Presentations in a Different Language 

If a section of a presentation is in a different language, you should highlight that section and modify the language.  

To modify language preferences, go to Review > Language > Set Proofing Language and make modifications as needed.

Columns

If you are organizing text into columns, use the built-in tool to ensure that assistive technology can read the information in the correct order. 

To add columns, navigate to Home > Paragraph > Add or Remove Columns.

Reading Order

PowerPoint consists of objects, such as, text, images, tables, and charts. To ensure assistive technologies read the slides in a logical manner, consistent with the visual reading order, the objects must be properly arranged. 

Navigate to Review > Check Accessibility > Reading Order Pane. This will open a panel that shows the objects on the slide. The list of objects should be read from the top to the bottom. If you need to rearrange items, drag and drop them or select the item, then press the up or down button.

Important Note about Header, Footer and Watermarks: If important information is contained in these objects you must confirm that they appear in the Reading Order pane or they will not be accessible to assistive technologies and you should consider alternative placement. 

To enable Headers and Footers in the presentation, navigate to Insert > Header & Footer > select “Footer”, type the information and select “Apply”.

Things to Avoid

• Superscripts and Subscripts
• Adding Spacing by Using the Return Key
  • Avoid adding extra space by hitting the return key. This may cause confusion with screen readers and will require more effort to make the presentation accessible, especially if you are converting to PDF. If you need additional spacing, adjust the spacing using Word’s built-in feature found at Home > Paragraph > Spacing. There is a button to easily add or remove spacing between paragraphs in the Paragraph section in the Home tab.

• Using Full Justification
  • Full justification adds extra spacing between the letters and words and makes it difficult to read the text, especially for users requiring magnification. Using left-hand justification is a best practice.

Use fonts that are easy to read. Overly decorative fonts should be avoided. Serif and sans-serif are universally accepted fonts for accessibility. Please note that this is not an OSU MDAS requirement, but best practice. Examples of serif and sans-serif fonts include: 

• Arial (sans-serif, preferred alternative font for Buckeye Sans 2)
• Aptos (sans-serif, default font in Microsoft Office)
• Book Antiqua (serif)
• Buckeye Sans 2 and Buckeye Serif 2
• Helvetica (sans-serif)
• Georgia (serif, preferred alternative font for Buckeye Serif 2)
• Times New Roman (serif)

OSU Branded Fonts

When creating official Ohio State University content, use the approved Buckeye fonts: Buckeye Sans 2 and Buckeye Serif 2. The OSU Brand Center’s Fonts page offers guidance on font types, use, and provides information on how to download the Buckeye fonts.

Font Size

Font size should be at least 18 points. This is not an OSU MDAS requirement, but best practice for legibility.

Things to Avoid

• Overly decorative fonts
• Strikethrough text
• Do not rely on bold, italic, and underline as the only way to convey meaning. Use the word “important” or “note” to draw attention where needed.

Built-in Templates

PowerPoint offers slide designs/themes that should be used (Navigate to Design > Themes). Designs were created to ensure good semantic structure, logical reading order, and appropriate color contrast, however, there are some designs that do not meet WCAG contrast guidelines so it’s always important to test suspect contrast issues.

Built-in Layouts

As with the built-in templates, when inserting a new slide into a presentation, you should use the pre-built layouts to ensure semantic structure and logical reading order. Do not add new text boxes on slides, instead find an existing pre-built layout that meets your needs.

Slide and Layout Masters

If you need to make modifications to your presentation, you can make changes on the slide master that will apply to all the slides based off of the master in your presentation. To view the slide master, navigate to View > Slide Master. In the Slide Master view, you may also make modifications of specific slide layouts. 

Slide Transitions

Slide transitions should be avoided as they can be distracting to users and detract from the content. 

Slide Animations

Simple animations can be used, but do not use flashing animations and avoid quick moving animations. 

Color and Contrast

Color

If color is used to convey meaning, it must be accompanied by a text description and/or a secondary visual signifier such as a pattern or icon. This is important for users that are not able to distinguish colors. 

The University of Michigan offers some great illustrations to ensure correct practices on their page: Color as the Only Indicator of Meaning. 

Contrast

To ensure text is perceivable, there must be sufficient contrast between the text color and background color. Contrast is measured by the difference in perceived brightness of two colors, commonly referred to as its “contrast ratio.” 

To help understand the ratios, white text on a white background has a contrast ratio of 1:1. Black text on a white background is 21:1. 

Requirements for contrast are as follows:

• Small Text: Text under 18-point regular font (14-point bold) must have a minimum 4.5:1 ratio with the background.
• Large Text: Text at or above 18-point font (14-point bold) must have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 with the background.
• Graphics that convey meaning must have a color contrast ratio of at least 3:1. An example of this include bullet points.

Resources

• WebAIM offers some great examples of color contrast on its page WebAIM Contrast and Color Accessibility.
• Colour Contrast Analyser tool: This is available for all OSU employees but requires installation via download. Please contact the IT Service Desk 614-688-4357 for assistance. Once the tool is downloaded, watch GSA’s Module 14: Color Contrast Analyzer video for a quick tutorial.

Alternative text (or alt text) describes the content and purpose of the images used. Visually impaired individuals  using screen readers will be read the alt text so that they can understand an image. Without this, screen reader users will be unable to get the same information as users without visual impairments. Alternative text is metadata added to an image that does not appear visually.

To add alt text, right-click on an image and select “View Alt Text”.

• Alt text should be clear and concise. The length is typically a few words but can be a couple of short sentences.
• Some images, such as graphs, charts, and diagrams, are too complex to  describe using alt text alone. The meaning of these images needs to be presented in an accessible, alternative format, such as a table.
• If the image is used for style or decoration and does not have any meaning, it must be marked as decorative so that screen readers ignore it. Select the image, choose Picture Format in the ribbon, select the Alt Text tab, then check “Mark as decorative.”

Note About Long Alt Text: If it is determined that the information needed to convey the meaning of the image requires more than a couple of short sentences, the author can add the description in the presentation notes. In the alternative text of the image, the author must direct the user to the description located in presentation notes.

Resources

Check out these great resources to learn how to write effective alt-text:

• WebAIM Alternative Text
• WebAIM Alt Text Decision Tree
• Microsoft Effective Alt Text
• DIAGRAM Center Image Description Guidelines – contains detailed guidance on writing text alternatives for a variety of image types, including drawings, diagrams, charts, maps, and more

Simple tables can be used to organize data in rows and columns. To create a table in PowerPoint, go to Insert > Table and choose the appropriate number of rows and columns. 

• Make sure the table has a title. This can be the slide title.
• Make sure the table has a header row. With the table selected, make sure the table has headers by navigating to Table Design > Table Style Options > select Header Row.
• Make sure the table has sufficient color contrast.
• Add alt text.

Things to Avoid

Screen readers keep track of their location within a table by counting cells. For this reason, it’s important that the table does not contain merged cells, split cells or nested tables. 

Making links accessible means making them perceivable (visually distinct from surrounding text) and making the purpose or destination of the link understandable. The display text for hyperlinks should be clear and provide an accurate description of the link destination. 

Good Example: To learn more about digital accessibility visit OSU’s Digital Accessibility Services' website.

Bad Example: To learn more about digital accessibility click here.

For step-by-step information on how to create hyperlinks, see Microsoft’s hyperlink guidance.

Things to Avoid

• Avoid labeling a link as “click here,” "read more," or “link.” Screen readers have shortcuts for users to skip to links on a page or there is functionality for users to generate a list of links on a page. When link titles are vague, such as “click here” or “read more” the user has no context for the link content.
• In electronic presentations, avoid displaying the full URL because a screen reader may read it out one letter at a time. If the purpose of the presentation is to be printed, then it’s appropriate to spell out the entire URL.

Use PowerPoint’s built-in list feature found at Home > Paragraph to create an ordered (numbered) or unordered (bullet) list. 

Ordered lists should be used when list items need to be understood in a specific order. Unordered lists should be used when the order of the items does not matter.

Thing to Avoid

You should avoid creating lists by using tabs and spaces to create indents. Screen readers may announce these to users as “Blank, blank, blank” and screen reader users may face challenges with navigating and understanding the list.

If you embed media into your PowerPoint that has meaningful information, you must provide the following additional information to ensure accessibility for all users:

• Audio-only: Link to an accurate transcript
• Video-only: Link to an accurate text description
• Audio and Video (Multi-media): Accurate synchronized captions and audio description
• If media is inserted as an object it must have alt text.