How to make Word documents accessible

Word documents designed to be printed and folded do not usually have an accessible layout and visual reading order when published online. For example:

• Leaflets typically include some upside-down text, which is hard to read. It's not always clear where one page stops and another begins, and the pages are usually out of order
• Booklets typically include two pages side by side. This can cause people to try to read left to right across both pages, instead of reading the first one from top to bottom, then the second one

If you have information you want to publish online, make sure you publish it in a web-optimised format. This could be as accessible web page content, or in an accessible Word document that you convert to PDF.

If you want to publish an inaccessible document designed for print, you must:

• Be able to show that publishing it will benefit people. For example, provide evidence that there's demand for a version of the content that people can print.
• Make it available alongside the web-optimised, accessible version
• Make it clear that the print version is designed to be printed and is a copy of the web-optimised, accessible version. For example, use link text that says 'Download a leaflet version of the information on this page to print'.