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Word has a table of contents feature which automatically generates a table of contents from your headings and creates anchor links to each section. This feature is especially useful for longer documents as this allows a user to efficiently skim your document using a screen reader. This can be particularly useful when sharing detailed course lecture notes that a user may want to refer back to during study and locate a specific section.

Visuals (images, diagrams, graphical charts)

The key thing to remember when using visuals in your document is to make sure you provide a text alternative that clearly describes what your visual depicts.

• Images
  • Alt (alternative) text: should briefly describe the content of the image and is read by a screen reader to communicate the content of the image to the user.
  • If you are using a decorative image that has no content to communicate, simply leave the alt text empty so it will be ignored by a screen reader.
  • Captions: consider using captions, especially for longer descriptions. Don't forget to create a reference for the caption in the image alt text.
• Diagrams and graphical charts/data
  • Captions and long descriptions: should fully describe the content depicted within these visual elements. It is also strongly advised to use references or figure numbers to associate a specific visual element (using alt text) and its caption/description.
• Tables
  • Tables should only be used to format and display tabular chart data. Tables should never be used for document layout
  /structure
  • purposes.
  • Tables should include header rows/columns as necessary to clearly indicate the data within and how it is being displayed.
  • Strongly consider supplying a table summary to briefly describe the content of a specific table.

Other resources for creating accessible Word documents

• WebAIM is one of the most authoritative sources regarding digital accessibility and they offer some detailed resources to further assist in the creation of accessible documents. Learn more at: https://webaim.org/techniques/word/
• Microsoft has a great best practice sheet helping you confirm that your document is accessible: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/make-your-word-documents-accessible-to-people-with-disabilities-d9bf3683-87ac-47ea-b91a-78dcacb3c66d