Overview

This lesson will cover a few different tools that can help ensure your document is easy to read, free of improper formatting, and accessible for users of assistive technology.

Core Concepts

Lists

Sighted users can glance at a list and know if it's long or short. When you create lists, use the bulleted or numbered list formatting tool. This will allow a screen reader to identify the number of items in a list before it begins to read the items.

When formatting lists correctly, it also allows the author to make additions/remove items and the numbers will automatically adjust (saving you tons of time).

screen shot of Word home ribbon with arrow pointing to list tools.

Spacing/Layout

Many people will use the tab key, space bar, and blank lines or text boxes to move text around and have it display just as they'd like. However, using these tools to format a document may cause accessibility problems when the content is read out of order or blank characters are repeatedly called out.

Here are some formatting tools that are often overlooked:

Columns

If you want to make columns, format them as columns. Do not put text on one line and use the tab key to move it over (text to speech technologies will read it one line at a time, not as columns and this is a nightmare when you need to copy and paste on "column" of text).

Follow these instructions for formatting columns:

Start by typing out all of your text or list. It's much easier to format columns when all of your content is on the page.
Select the text that you want in columns.
Go to the Layout tab and select the Columns menu.
Select the number of columns you'd like.
If you do not like where columns end and begin, you can use column breaks to designate when the next column should begin. The column break tool is also under the Layout Tab, in the Breaks menu.

Extra Spaces

If there are a series of spaces in a document in the form of empty lines, empty tabs, or multiple spaces created using the space bar, someone using assistive technology will have to listen as the spaces are called out and may assume they've reached the end of a document (it's common to accumulate excess spaces and lines at the end of a document). Additionally, manually created spaces can lead to unnecessary trouble for yourself when reformatting a document.

To avoid these problems, use the page break tool if you're trying to keep content on one page. Use the paragraph increase and decrease indent tools to shift text to the right or left (rather than tabbing or using multiple spaces).

Paragraph Spacing

Many people will use blank lines to create spaces between text. As we've already mentioned, it's better to avoid creating blank spaces when you can.

In Microsoft Office you can adjust the paragraph spacing to increase or decrease the amount of space between paragraphs. You can also set the spacing for the different heading levels (we suggest adding 12-18pts before to help create space between a heading and the previous section's body text).

To add or subtract paragraph space, select the text you're working with and navigate to the home tab. Click on the line spacing icon from the Paragraph menu and select "line spacing options". A pop up will appear and you can designate more or less space to fall before or after the text.

You can also apply the paragraph spacing to your heading styles. Once you find a paragraph space setting that you like, just right-click on the style and select 'Update style to match selection'. The spacing that you set will be applied to any text that has been marked as that particular style.

Check Your Understanding:

Blank spaces are not problematic for people using assistive technology.

A. True

Incorrect.
Blank spaces are often read aloud and can create a confusing or disruptive reading experience. They also make reformatting more difficult.

B. False

Correct.

Video Supplements

Advanced Microsoft Word - Formatting Your Document (10 mins)

Learn how you can format your Microsoft Word documents so that they look and behave the way you want them to. Some of the formatting options you'll learn about include using page and section breaks, using columns, inserting line numbers, and changing the margins. This video doesn't touch on accessibility, but using the tools as they're meant to be used supports accessibility.

Advanced Microsoft Word - Formatting Your Document