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Best practices for making accessible PowerPoint presentations
This article contains key best practices for creating accessible PowerPoint presentations.
PowerPoint presentations tend to be highly visual, and people who are blind or have low vision can understand them more easily if you create your slides with accessibility in mind.
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What to fix |
How to find it |
Why fix it |
How to fix it |
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Include alternative text with all visuals. |
To find missing alternative text, use the Accessibility Checker. |
Alternative text helps people who can’t see the screen to understand what’s important in images and other visuals. |
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Make sure slide contents can be read in the order that you intend. |
Use the Accessibility Checker to find slides that have possible problems with reading order. Try navigating your slides with a screen reader. |
A screen reader reads the elements of a slide in the order they were added to the slide, which might be very different from the order in which things appear. |
Set the reading order of slide contents Use built-in slide designs for inclusive reading order, colors, and more |
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Add meaningful and accurate hyperlink text and ScreenTips. |
To determine whether hyperlink text makes sense as standalone information, visually scan the slides in your presentation. |
People who use screen readers sometimes scan a list of links. Tip: You can also add ScreenTips that appear when your cursor hovers over text or images that include a hyperlink. |
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Ensure that color is not the only means of conveying information. |
Select Start > Settings > Accessibility > Color filters. Turn on the Color filter switch, and then select Grayscale. Visually scan each slide in your presentation for instances of color-coding. |
People who are blind, have low vision, or are colorblind might miss out on the meaning conveyed by particular colors. |
Use an accessible presentation template Use built-in slide designs for inclusive reading order, colors, and more |
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Use sufficient contrast for text and background colors. |
To find insufficient color contrast, use the Accessibility Checker. You can also look for text in your presentation that’s hard to read or to distinguish from the background. |
Strong contrast between text and background makes it easier for people with low vision or colorblindness to see and use the content. |
Use built-in slide designs for inclusive reading order, colors, and more |