How to make Word documents accessible

You should make sure your document has a clean, clear design and layout. This will help people engage with and understand the information in your document. 

You should also prioritise text and images that help people understand the key information you want to share. Don't include unnecessary information or lots of decorative visuals - this can distract or overwhelm people. 

Text formatting 

How you format your text can affect how easy or difficult it is to read. To make your text as easy to read as possible, we recommend: 

• Using a common font, like Arial, Calibri, Trebuchet MS or Aptos. Avoid overly decorative fonts 
• Making all text horizontal (no upside down or diagonal text) 
• Formatting text no smaller than size 12 
• Making sure it has good colour contrast 
• Avoiding using block capitals or lots of italics - some people find them hard to read 
• Avoiding underlining text (unless it's a link) 

Break the text in your document into chunks using headings and lists. Include white (empty) space between text and images to break up the content. Find out how to change spacing between paragraphs in Word. 

You should also make sure your text is easy to understand by writing in plain English. Including good quality, effective images can help too. 

Text boxes 

Avoid using text boxes in your document. This is because software that reads text aloud to people, like screen readers, can't usually access the text in text boxes. Instead: 

• If you want to position text in your document in a particular place on the page, trying using the indents and spacing tools 
• If you want to add a coloured background or outline to your text, add a shape behind the text. Make sure you follow our images accessibility advice and mark it as decorative 

Redacted text 

If you need to hide or redact text, remove it from the document. Don't hide it by making it the same colour as your page background. This is because some tools and software will still be able to access it. 

Columns 

You might have columns of text in your document that you want people to read one at a time - like in a newspaper or magazine.  

You must format these columns using the 'Columns' tool. This is in the 'Layout' menu in the 'Page Setup' section. 

Only use tables or other tools to create columns if you want people to read row by row rather than column by column. If you use tables, you must also follow our tables accessibility advice. 

This will help you make sure that screen readers read out your text in the correct order. 

Page orientation 

We recommend using portrait page orientation instead of landscape. 

 This is because: 

• Around 60% of people visit our websites using mobile. People are less likely to need to zoom in or change the way they normally hold their phone to view portrait documents. 
• The longer a line of text is, the harder it is for people to move easily to the start of the next line - especially if you need to scroll to see it. Portrait documents usually have shorter lines of text than landscape documents 

Only use landscape orientation if you have a good reason. For example, to layout an image or table that would be hard to view or navigate in portrait orientation. 

Headers and footers 

Including information in a header and footer in your document can help people navigate and understand your document.  

However, headers and footers aren't accessible for everyone. For example: 

• Screen readers often don't tell users about header and footer content unless users specifically request it. Or they don't detect and read out the content at all 
• Headers and footers are usually visually hidden in Word online in edit mode. Users must change the settings to get them to appear 

This means that, if you decide to include a header and footer in your Word document, you must: 

• Only add a header and footer to your document using the 'Header and Footer' tools. They are in the 'Insert' menu. 
• Keep the content in your header and footer consistent - they should include the same or similar information on every page they appear on 
• Repeat any information you put in the header and footer in the main page text (apart from page numbers) 
• Make sure the page numbers in your header or footer match the page numbers of the physical document. For example, the third page of your document should be marked as page 3 

We recommend avoiding using roman numerals as page numbers, as most people find them harder to read and understand than numbers. 

Watermarks 

A watermark is an image that appears behind the main text of the document. It is usually a light colour or transparent. People usually use watermarks to mark documents as a draft or confidential. 

We recommend avoiding using watermarks because they are usually difficult to see. Instead, state that the document is a draft or confidential in the page text at the beginning of your document. 

If you still want to use a watermark, you must make sure it: 

• Has good colour contrast 
• Has a good text description that explains what it means - follow our images accessibility advice