Specifics for Other Media Types

PowerPoint/Slides Specifics

• Slides have been created using an accessible template.
• Slides have descriptive titles.
• Slide titles are unique.
• Reading order has been checked and adjusted for each slide.

PDF Accessibility

PDFs can create serious issues for accessibility. When a PDF is scanned, it takes a picture of the document. This means that it is one big graphic and has no text that can be understood by a screen reader or reading tool. It also is not searchable or usable for the student who may want to highlight sections or pull quotes for their notes. Best practices for PDFs include:

• The document/presentation has been checked using accessibility checker tools in Acrobat.
• The PDF Document was created using OCR (Optical Character Recognition) – not just scanned.
• The PDF Document is properly Tagged.
  • NOTE: Tagging the PDF with the “Tag PDF” option in Acrobat is not always sufficient. If you use that option, you need to review to ensure the tagging is accurate.
• The PDF is searchable.
• The PDF reading order has been checked.
• PDFs were created as accessible documents first, then exported as PDFs.
  • For Microsoft using the Adobe PDF Maker with accessibility options selected
  • For Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets, use the Grackle tool.
• The file is available for students to download.

Video and Audio

• Your own videos are captioned.
• Transcripts are provided for your videos and audio recordings.
• External videos (e.g. YouTube, DVDs, other online videos) are captioned.
  • Note: While auto-captioning has gotten much better over the years, it WILL NOT satisfy an accommodation request. Issues such as missing punctuation, sentence syntax, speakers who are not identified, incidental sounds, music that provides context, and even an occasional inaccurate word can fundamentally change the understanding and overall experience for a student who is deaf.