Bringing Everyone to the Table

By GIC Published on November 24th, 2025

Last updated on November 24th, 2025

Cartoon of Delaware-shaped character "Delly" at a Thanksgiving table with many other similar characters in different colors. One of them is using a wheelchair.

How Your Colleagues Can Help Keep Your Site Accessible

It’s Thanksgiving week, so we’re going to try to help you bring your colleagues to the table to start a discussion about how your agency creates documents.

And we’re even going to share some resources that can be printed out and taped up as reminders for your more analog coworkers!

A lot of intrepid Delaware state agency website editors are wearing many hats. Posting information created by other colleagues is often part of the job.

Those colleagues aren’t always thinking about digital accessibility when they create documents or PowerPoint presentations, but this content is often subsequently posted to the agency’s website.

Given the pending accessibility deadline, this workflow may need revisiting.

Representational image of lone person standing in a swirling mass of papers.

If your colleagues can keep just a few key points in mind, it could prevent having to remediate and often re-create those documents down the road.

Office Document Creation No-Nos

DO NOT use a scanner to convert Word documents to PDFs. This essentially creates a photo of the document, and screen reading software won’t be able to read it.

DO NOT use a lot of fancy fonts. Screen readers can’t always read text that varies from standards like Arial. Keep it simple!

DO NOT use a lot of background colors. The contrasts can affect people who are color blind or have other visual challenges. Contrast issues can also confuse screen readers.

Office Document Creation Checklists

The information in this section is all available in downloadable, printable Word documents later in the post.

Microsoft Word Documents:

Screenshot of MS Word toolbar with the Styles tab selected.

Use built-in heading styles:
Select your headings and apply styles like “Heading 1,” “Heading 2” from the Home>Styles toolbar.
Accessible Heading Structure – Government Information Center
Add alternative text to images:
Right-click the image, choose “View Alt Text,” and write a clear description of the image’s purpose.
Adding Alt Text in WordPress – Government Information Center
Check color contrast:
Use tools like the WebAIM Contrast Checker to ensure text/background colors meet contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
Run the built-in MS Word “Check Accessibility” function. You can find it under the “Review” tab on the top toolbar.
Also on the Review toolbar, you’ll find the Read Aloud speech button. Listen to each document when it’s formatted and complete to make sure it makes sense from an audio-only standpoint.

Screenshot showing Microsoft Word and the top toolbar, with the Check Accessibility tab selected.

PDFs:

Screenshot of the left menu bar of MS word with the Save as Adobe PDF option highlighted.

Don’t simply scan MS Word or other documents, as heading structures and alt text will not be included. Instead, make sure the Word doc is accessible (previous checklist). Then choose “File” from a Word doc and select “Save as Adobe PDF”.
Accessible PDFs – Government Information Center
Add alternative text to images:
Use Adobe Acrobat’s “Set Alternate Text” feature by right-clicking images in the Accessibility pane.
Adding alt text in Acrobat
Ensure PDFs are searchable:
Run OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on scanned PDFs via Adobe Acrobat’s “Scan & OCR” tool.
Using OCR in Acrobat
Run a scan with the free PAVE PDF Accessibility Checker:
https://pave-pdf.org/pave/index.html#

PowerPoint Presentations:

Use accessible slide layouts:
Start new slides using built-in layouts (e.g., Title Slide, Title and Content) to keep proper reading order.
Microsoft’s accessibility tips for PowerPoint
Add alternative text:
Right-click images, charts, or shapes, select “Edit Alt Text,” and write concise descriptions.
Avoid color-only cues:
Use text labels, patterns, or icons alongside color to convey meaning (e.g., add “Approved” label, not just green).
Run the built-in “Check Accessibility” function. You can find it under the “Review” tab on the top toolbar.

Screenshot of top toolbar in Microsoft Power Point interface in which the "Check Accessibility" option has been selected.

A Thanksgiving Gift from the GIC for Your Office

A decorative illustration of a cooked turkey on a plate.

We’ve created downloadable, printable versions of the checklists in this blog for you to share with your colleagues:

GIC Word Doc Checklist

GIC PDF Doc Checklist

GIC PowerPoint Checklist

NOTE: These are all examples of fully-accessible Word documents.

Other Suggestions

Meet with your agency colleagues. Discuss ways you can work together to address accessibility as soon as new documents are created. Consider whether it makes sense for each person to be responsible for checking and remediating their own creations. If it does not, who on the team can be established as accessibility lead?
Consider sharing or posting the attached checklist in places where they will be visible and helpful to colleagues.
Run an accessibility check on all docs before posting them.
Run a screen reader test on all docs before posting them.. Listen with your eyes closed and see if what you’re hearing makes sense.

It’s a big enough challenge to bring content that was created many years ago to current standards. There’s really no excuse to keep systems in place that will continue to generate inaccessible content. It’s a legal and moral obligation that we all share.

So, as we give thanks this year, let’s remember those who have challenges that we might not, and let’s actually do something about it.

Together, as a team!