Most accessibility teams spend their time remediating PDFs, but the real problem usually lives one step upstream — in the Word document, PowerPoint deck or Excel workbook the PDF was exported from. If the source is structured correctly, the PDF is mostly accessible for free. If the source is a visual layout with fake bullets, merged cells and text boxes for headings, no amount of Acrobat rework will fully save it.
This guide covers the essentials for the three formats that produce the overwhelming majority of business and government PDFs: Microsoft Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx) and Excel (.xlsx). The same principles apply to Google Docs, LibreOffice, Keynote and Numbers — only the menu items change.
Every item below maps to a real WCAG 2.2 success criterion, to a Matterhorn checkpoint once the file becomes a PDF, and to one of the 31 automated detections in the WCAGHub Document Checker. Fix these at the source and you save hours per document later.
Word is forgiving, which is why its documents so often fail accessibility. The moment you use visual formatting instead of real styles, you have broken the structural tree that screen readers depend on.
The twelve items below resolve the majority of accessibility failures in real-world Word documents. None of them requires a third-party plugin — everything is in the Home, Insert and Review ribbons.
Use Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3 from the Styles pane — never just bold-and-bigger. Keep the hierarchy in order; do not skip from H1 to H3.
Set it in File → Info → Properties → Title. Screen readers announce this in place of the filename when the PDF opens.
Set via Review → Language → Set Proofing Language. Apply again to any passages in a different language so screen readers switch pronunciation.
Right-click an image → View Alt Text. Write what the image communicates, not “image of”. Mark purely decorative images as decorative.
Use Insert → Table, tick Header Row in the Table Design tab, and under Properties tick Repeat as header row at top. Avoid merged and split cells in data tables.
Use the Bullets or Numbering buttons in the Home ribbon. Bullets typed as characters ( • Apple ) export as paragraphs and break list structure.
Highlight the descriptive phrase, then Insert → Link. Never “click here” or raw URLs — screen readers read out every character of a URL.
Body text needs 4.5:1, large text 3:1. The built-in Accessibility Checker (Review → Check Accessibility) flags low-contrast runs.
Red cells, green checkmarks, yellow highlights — any meaning conveyed by colour must also be conveyed by text, an icon or a shape.
Text boxes export as anchored shapes outside the document tag tree — screen readers may skip them entirely. Use styled paragraphs instead.
Use Insert Caption so the caption stays grouped with the image in the tag tree — not typed as a separate paragraph underneath.
Review → Check Accessibility catches most of the above before you ship. Fix every Error and Warning before exporting to PDF.
PowerPoint is the hardest of the three formats to make accessible, because its visual-first layout breaks reading order and hides meaning in shapes that screen readers cannot follow. These ten items fix the worst offenders.
Every slide is an independent document to a screen reader. Give each one a unique title, a predictable reading order and no decorative-only content, and you are 80 % of the way there.
Every slide must have a non-empty, unique title in the title placeholder — this is how screen-reader users navigate between slides. Use View → Outline View to check.
Insert content into the built-in placeholders instead of dragging free text boxes. Placeholder content carries semantic meaning into the export; loose shapes do not.
Open Home → Arrange → Selection Pane. Items are read from bottom to top. Reorder so the story reads in the sequence you intend.
Right-click → View Alt Text. For charts, summarise the trend rather than listing every data point; the underlying data should be available elsewhere.
Dark text on a photo background is a common failure. Use an overlay, a solid colour band, or switch to a high-contrast theme. 4.5:1 text, 3:1 large text.
Embedded media must have captions or a transcript. Use Playback → Insert Captions or link to a captioned version.
Content that plays or moves on without user control fails WCAG 2.2.2. Let the user trigger each transition.
As with Word, highlight descriptive phrases before inserting the hyperlink. Never paste a raw URL on a slide as the link text.
Tick Header Row in the Table Design tab. Avoid merged cells. If the data needs complex tables, link out to an Excel file instead.
Review → Check Accessibility. The Inspection Results list is prioritised — clear all Errors, then all Warnings.
Excel accessibility is about making data machine-readable as well as human-readable. The eight items below let screen-reader users orient themselves, move between cells, and understand what each value means.
Structure the data the way a database would, and accessibility follows — one header row, one record per row, no merged cells in the grid, descriptive sheet names.
Rename tabs from Sheet1 to something meaningful like Q1 revenue. Screen readers announce sheet names when navigating.
Convert the range to an Excel Table (Ctrl+T) and tick My table has headers. That writes the header relationship into the file structure.
Merged cells break keyboard navigation and screen-reader row/column announcements. Reserve them for titles above the data, not inside it.
No stacked values, no blank rows in the middle of a table, no total row that looks like data. Put totals in a clearly separated row below the table or use the Table Total Row feature.
Right-click chart → Edit Alt Text. Summarise what the chart shows, not its appearance. Make sure the underlying data is still on the sheet.
Use Insert → Link with a display text rather than pasting a raw URL into a cell. Same rule as every other format.
Status columns coloured red or green must also carry a text value or symbol. Conditional formatting alone is inaccessible to colour-blind users.
Review → Check Accessibility. Excel flags merged cells, missing alt text, default sheet names and hard-to-read contrast.
The Document Checker opens .docx, .pptx and .xlsx files directly — it does not wait for you to export to PDF. That means it catches problems at the source, where they are cheapest to fix, and where one fix can save every future export.
Heading hierarchy, real lists vs. fake bullets, table headers with scope, alt text, document title, document language, link text, contrast, empty headings, paragraphs styled as headings. All at the XML level, not from a rendered preview.
~12 detectionsUnique slide titles, placeholder vs. loose text box usage, Selection Pane reading order, alt text on images & charts, captions on media, autoplay flags, meaningful link text, table headers, slide master usage.
~11 detectionsSheet names, Excel-table header detection, merged cells inside data ranges, alt text on charts & images, meaningful link text, colour-only meaning in conditional formatting, hidden sheets, defined name hygiene.
~8 detectionsEvery finding comes with a fix written for the app that created the file. The checker reads authoring-tool metadata and switches the instructions accordingly: Microsoft Word for Windows says “Review → Check Accessibility”, Word for Mac says “Tools → Check Accessibility”, Google Docs says “Tools → Accessibility”, LibreOffice points at Tools → Check Accessibility, and Pages steps are tailored to macOS. No more hunting through generic Office help pages.
After you export, hand the resulting PDF to the PDF Checker with a single click — the scan history and findings follow the file, so you can see which source fixes actually landed in the export and which ones were lost in translation. Same workspace, two engines, one audit trail.
Smart Priorities. Findings are sorted by legal exposure · user impact · fix cost for your jurisdiction. A missing document title on a public-service form in EU EAA territory is prioritised differently than the same finding on an internal memo. Six jurisdictions (AU / US / EU / UK / CA / Global) each get their own ranking.
A structurally perfect Word document can still produce an untagged PDF if you export it wrong. The settings below are what turn “it looks the same” into “a screen reader can actually read it”.
Use File → Save as Adobe PDF (if Acrobat is installed) or File → Save As → PDF → Options. Tick both boxes below. Never “Print to PDF” — that flattens all structure.
✓ Document structure tags for accessibility
✓ Document properties
Export via File → Save As → PDF with the same two options ticked. In PowerPoint, also verify reading order with the Selection Pane before export — the PDF freezes the order permanently.
✓ Document structure tags for accessibility
✓ Selection Pane reviewed
Upload the resulting PDF to the WCAGHub PDF Checker. Any errors at this stage came from the source, not the export — so head back to the Doc Checker and fix them there.
161 automated checks
PDF/UA · Matterhorn · WCAG 2.2
Every jurisdiction that enforces WCAG for web content applies the same standard to documents the organisation publishes — Word, PowerPoint, Excel and the PDFs they become. Each card below links to the full compliance brief.
Government documents published online must meet WCAG 2.2 AA. Source .docx/.pptx/.xlsx are included; PDFs alone are not a sufficient alternative.
Read briefFederal electronic documents must conform to WCAG 2.0 AA equivalents. ADA Title II/III extends to public-facing documents of state and local government (April 2026).
Read briefEN 301 549 covers “non-web documents” directly. Office files published by public bodies must be accessible in their native format.
Read briefAll documents published by public-sector bodies after September 2018 must meet WCAG 2.2 AA in their published format.
Read briefBoth the ACA and AODA Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation cover document formats published online by covered organisations.
Read briefWCAG applies to any content delivered online — including Office files. Meeting WCAG 2.2 AA in the source document clears most national requirements simultaneously.
Read briefThe WCAGHub Document Checker runs every rule on this page and more — headings, alt text, table headers, slide titles, merged cells, meaningful link text, language, contrast, export-readiness. AI Fix written for your exact authoring tool. One-click handoff to the PDF Checker after export. Free for your first file.