Creating accessible documents means the people you share your content with can actually use it, regardless of whether they rely on a screen reader, keyboard navigation, or other assistive technology. The good news is that the tools you already use, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat, have accessibility features built in. The resources on this page will help you put those tools to work.

Start with Training

The best way to get started is to attend a live session or watch the recorded training. The Accessible Documents recorded session covers the full workflow from source file to final PDF, including hands-on walkthroughs of Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat Pro. It runs about an hour and twenty minutes and is the most comprehensive resource we offer on this topic.

If you prefer a live session where you can ask questions, check the training schedule for upcoming Accessible Documents offerings. Sessions are offered regularly and are open to all TTU faculty and staff.

Guides by Format

These guides give you step-by-step instructions for the most common document formats. Each one is focused on practical actions you can take right now.

• Creating Accessible Documents and PDFs - Covers heading styles, alt text, table headers, and link text in Word and Excel, and walks through how to export correctly and verify accessibility in Adobe Acrobat Pro. Start here if you regularly share documents in any format.
• Creating Accessible PowerPoints and Presentations - Covers slide titles, reading order, alt text for images and charts, table markup, color contrast, and captioning embedded video. Use this guide whether you are building a new presentation or cleaning up an existing one.

Supporting Resources

These two resources come up regularly when working through document accessibility and are worth bookmarking.

• Alt Text Decision Tree - Images are one of the most common accessibility gaps in documents. Whether to write a short description, a long description, or mark something as decorative depends on the image and its context. This decision tree walks you through the logic so you can make the right call for any image you encounter.
• PDF Curation Guide - Before spending time remediating a PDF, it is worth asking whether it needs to exist in its current form at all. This guide helps you think through your document inventory and decide what to remediate, what qualifies for an archival exemption, and what can simply be removed. A leaner content library is a lot easier to keep accessible over time.

Get Help

If you run into something complicated or are not sure where to start, reach out to the Digital Accessibility team at digitalaccessibility@ttu.edu. We are happy to answer questions, review a document with you, or point you toward the right resource for your situation.