Vision Australia has released a Word tool that helps ensure documents can be read by people who have trouble reading standard documents.
All documents (Word, web pages etc) can include special, hidden, codes which allows the information to be reformatted to suit people with special requirements. For example, instead of an image, there is alternate text
The Document Accessibility Toolbar (DAT) lets you quickly add accessibility info and tags to your Word documents.
According to Vision Australia, the DAT has:
- A built-in screen reader that enables a content author to simulate the experience of a person who is blind or has low vision.
- A table wizard that automates header column and row markup.
- An alternative text wizard that prompts a content author to apply alternative text when an image is inserted.
- A colour contrast tool that helps a content author to find colour combinations with insufficient colour contrast and rectify them.
- A Word-to-HTML converter that produces HTML without Microsoft’s proprietary code and facilitates conversion to accessible HTML.
The Document Accessibility Toolbar is in beta and available as a free download from Vision Australia. It’s compatible with Word 2016 for Windows, Word 2013 and Word 2010.
