[stylist] Tech Writing: Ten Steps to Make Accessible Word Documents for PDF Production

[Homme, James]

Hi People,
Based on suggestions, Here is the document again. I think I'm going to possibly make a table of contents, and possibly a table of key strokes, but I was thinking that my audience is sighted people, and I wanted to keep the article size down a bit. Here it is again. It is two pages. See below my signature. One thing I noticed just now is that I say "do this," or "do the following" a lot. That is starting to bother me. I don't want to get too cute with that stuff, but … anyway. Here it is.

Jim

Ten Steps to Make Accessible Word Documents for PDF Production
By Jim Homme
Introduction
In Word 2007, 2010, and 2013, if you have to create accessible PDF's, the more attention you pay to accessibility from within Word, the easier and more efficiently the PDF touch up will go when you convert the document with the Acrobat plug-in, or the Microsoft Save As PDF process.
A great way to make accessible word documents for PDF production, if you know that you are going to repeatedly create a certain type of document, is to do the following ten things.[1]
1. Start a New Template Document
Yes. Start a new template document. This is very important. I am talking about a real Word template file, not a template in the figurative sense. To do this, click File, type N, then tab once to  New Blank Document and press ENTER.
2. Make Visually Pleasing, Accessible Documents
You can make accessible documents without sacrificing visual features. Keep these points in mind.
Choose Or Alter a Theme
If you do not like the default Word theme, check the various themes in the Theme gallery on the Home tab to see if you can get one as close as possible to how you want the document to look. If you can get one that you like, apply it. If not, create one.
Use Styles For All Versions of Word
Regardless of the theme you use, do the following.

·         Pick a title style from the Styles dialog for the document title.

·         For normal paragraph breaks, never press ENTER twice. Instead, if you want visual space below a normal paragraph, alter the style properties.

·         To create line breaks, hit SHIFT+ENTER.

·         To create section and subsection titles, use the Styles dialog and pick the styles whose names are "Heading 1," "Heading 2,", etc.

·         To create bulleted and numbered lists, pick a list style from the Style gallery on the Home tab, or right click the current paragraph and use a list style.

3. Make Accessible Tables
If your document uses tables, Do the following for each one.

·         To create tables, use the Insert tab and insert real Word tables. Do not use the TAB key to create lines that look like table rows.

·         Ensure that each row has the same number of cells. For example, the number of cells per row does not change from two, to three, to two.

·         right click or press SHIFT+F10 from inside each table, choose Table Properties, and Check the box that repeats table headers on each page.

4. Make Images Accessible
People who use screen readers will be able to understand the purpose of each image if you right click it and alter its properties as follows.

·         Right click or press SHIFT+F10 to open the context menu, then arrow to Edit Picture and press ENTER. Note for JAWS users: press CTRL+SHIFT+O to select the image first.

·         Describe the image by typing its purpose in the Description and Alternate Text properties. Make it short, but succinct. Pretend you are describing the image over the phone. Enter just enough text to describe it fully, but keep it as short as possible. Remember, someone has to listen to it and wants to keep their concentration on the document content. If the document either already has a caption for the image, or it is decorative, use a single space for the Description and  Alternate Text properties. This causes screen readers to ignore the image.

5. Help Your Audience Navigate Long Documents With a Table of Contents

If the document is long enough to make navigation cumbersome, create a Table of Contents, and let Word generate it automatically. Go to the References tab, choose Table of Contents, and choose one of the Automatic choices.

6. Prepare and Save the Finished Document
You are in the home stretch now. These next few steps will help make repairs much easier once you convert your document to PDF. Click Review, or If Word's default language is not set to your native language, set it. You will only have to do this once. It sticks for every document you create.

·         Give the document a Title property. To do this, click File, click Info, and fill in the Title property box.

·         Save the document as a Word document. To do this, click File, click Save As, then click Save As Type and choose Word document (*.docx). In the File Name box, make sure the name contains no special characters or spaces. Click Save.

7. Prepare The Template To Use Again.
To get the document template ready to use again, do the following.

·         Make sure that you are working with the .dotx (template) file, not the document (docx) file. To do this, look at the title of the window and make sure that the file name has "dotx" at the end.

·         Keep the text you want to repeat each time you create this document type.

·         Delete the text that you know you will recreate each time you make this document type.

·         Save the template (dotx) document. To do this, click File, click Save As, click  Save As Type, and choose Word Template (*.dotx), then click Save.

8. For All New Documents, Do This
For all new documents, either of the same type, or of another type, if you know that you will re-create them over and over, do this.

·         For documents of the same type, start with the template you previously created.

·         For all new document types, start with a blank template.

9. Do As Much Repair From Within Word As Possible
This is very important. If you've generated the pdf for a document, and it needs repair, do this.

·         If you tweak the styles or repeated text, always start with the template, not a Word document, and re-save the template file. Then, re-save the file as a Word document.

10. Finally, pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
Give yourself a nice pat on the back. Make sure you hold your arm nice and high. Congratulations.




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[1] You can also use this process for one-off documents. Ignore the instructions about saving templates.

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