About Microsoft 365 apps Accessibility Checkers

Audience: Students, Faculty, Staff, Affiliates

Responsible Group: IT Training and Outreach

Overview

Microsoft Accessibility Checkers are built-in tools across Microsoft 365 apps: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and SharePoint. This app function helps ensure your content is usable by all people, including those with disabilities. By scanning documents, spreadsheets, slides, notebooks, emails, and shared content for accessibility issues, the checker highlights errors and suggests fixes before you share. Using these tools increases usability, ensures compliance with accessibility standards, and helps create content that works across devices and formats. Accessibility Checkers also improve the accessibility of PDFs generated from Microsoft apps by encouraging you to resolve issues before exporting.

Key Features

• Real-time feedback: Identifies issues such as missing alt text, poor color contrast, unreadable tables, and improper heading structure.
• Step-by-step guidance: Provides recommended fixes and links to learn more.
• Integration across apps: Available in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, and SharePoint  to cover different types of content.
• Improved PDF accessibility: Correcting issues before export ensures that saved PDFs retain accessible formatting.
• Compliance support: Helps meet WCAG 2.1 and Section 508 standards for digital accessibility.

Access

If the Accessibility Checker is not visible from the directions below, the window of the app may not be wide enough to view the full ribbon. Expand the window to full size. On some laptops with smaller windows, you may need to click the three dots (…) in the ribbon to access the Accessibility Checker.

You can access the Accessibility Checker in each Microsoft app by following these steps:

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (Desktop and Web)

1. Open your document, spreadsheet, presentation, or email draft.
2. Go to the Review tab.
3. Select Check Accessibility.
4. Review and resolve issues listed in the Accessibility pane.

Outlook (Desktop and Web)

1. Create a new email: New > Mail.
2. Go to Message tab.
3. Select Check Accessibility.
4. Review and resolve issues listed in the Accessibility pane.

SharePoint (Web)

1. Edit the page.
2. Select the Accessibility Assistant.
3. Review and resolve issues listed in the Accessibility Assistant pane.

Training

Beyond accessing the Accessibility Checker, it is good practice to analyze and evaluate your document creation process: Does my document have an organized structure? Do my images have alt text? Do my tables have headers? 

Remember the goal is two-fold for creating accessible documents: make sense for the screen reader to read the content and convey information effectively for everyone and to access the information on any device (desktop, laptop, table, mobile).

Below are extra training opportunities specific to Microsoft 365 applications.

• LinkedIn Learning: Microsoft Office Accessibility for Beginners (24m 4s)
• Microsoft Support: Accessibility in Microsoft 365
• Microsoft Learn: Create accessible content (learning module)
• Word: Make your Word documents accessible to people with disabilities
• Excel: Accessibility best practices with Excel spreadsheets
• PowerPoint: Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities
• OneNote: Make your OneNote notebooks accessible to people with disabilities
• Outlook: Make your Outlook email accessible to people with disabilities
• SharePoint: Make your SharePoint site accessible to people with disabilities

Need Help?

• Submit a UARK IT Help ticket for access issues.
• Submit an IT training request for personalized support from IT Training and Outreach.

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