Accessible PowertPoint presentations
In order to make your university teaching as inclusive as possible
you should also make your PowerPoint presentations accessible,
to enable as many people as possible, with or without disabilities,
to independently access your teaching content.
In this video we explain
what accessible PowerPoint presentations are,
how to plan and create them,
how to check their accessibility
and what to keep in mind when giving a presentation.
Step 1: What is an accessible PowerPoint presentation?
Same as other accessible digital content
accessible PowerPoint presentations are designed so that
they can be read with technical aids such as a screen reader
and can thus be independently read
by people with visual impairment.
They also have some technical specifications
and are clearly structured.
When planning your next PowerPoint presentation
same as the lecture itself, take into account that you are dealing
with a heterogeneous audience with different needs
and think about accessibility right from the start.
See this as an opportunity to restructure
your teaching content once again
and thereby improve its comprehensibility.
This not only increases student satisfaction,
but also helps optimize teaching as a whole.
Step 2: Creating a presentation
A basic note:
As always with the creation of accessible documents
you should follow the principles of accessible design:
All content should be clearly and logically structured,
the texts should be uniformly designed in a sans serif font
and headings must be identified as such.
The contrast between text and background should be as high as possible,
and you should avoid manual or automatic word division.
Use the tools provided
for lists, tables or diagrams.
Text and graphs should not be positioned
by inserting several blank lines,
but with the help of correctly positioned placeholders in the Slide Master.
Add Alternate Text and a caption
to images and graphs.
You should avoid unnecessary decorative elements,
especially background graphics.
When choosing the colors, for example for your graphs or diagrams,
you should also ensure that there is sufficient contrast.
But, be careful: Avoid the complementary colors red and green,
because people with a red-green color blindness cannot see any difference here.
It also makes sense to use the design of the University of Potsdam
when creating your presentation.
Advice on design, fonts and colors,
as well as various logos can be found on the website of the
Center for Information Technology and Media Management at the University of Potsdam
under "Offers and Solutions"> "Multimedia Services">
"Graphics, 3D and Corporate Design".
Let's get started.
First define the basic appearance
under "View" in the "Slide Master",
e.g. the position of placeholders for slide titles,
text or images in the individual slide layouts.
Under "Fonts" you can also define
the font for your entire presentation.
We choose the sans serif font "Calibri".
With any additional elements that you place in the Slide Master,
e.g. the logo of the University of Potsdam or a footer,
you should be careful because depending on how they are created
they are being treated differently by screen readers in PowerPoint than in the PDF.
In order to avoid unnecessary difficulties,
it is therefore advisable to not put any relevant information
- such as your contact details -
in the footer of the "Slide Master".
Instead, you should create a separate slide
in the "Normal" view for this information.
When you are satisfied with your “Master Layout”,
you can close it and return to the normal view.
Next, you should give your presentation a document title.
To do this, open the “Info” under “File”.
Enter the title under "Properties" on the right.
Now the actual creation of the presentation can begin.
On the first slide we're going to add
the same title as we just did and add a subtitle.
It is best to set the document language
in the status bar at the bottom before you continue.
This is important so that the screen reader
will later read the texts with the correct intonation.
Please always use the preset layout elements,
instead of creating fields yourself.
This ensures that the screen reader interprets everything correctly.
To insert a new slide, select the desired layout from the menu.
So that people who use a screen reader,
can orientate themselves well in the presentation,
you should give each slide its own, short and concise "Slide Title".
Always use the placeholder provided for this.
The slide titles also provide the basis
for the “Outline View” of the presentation.
Here you can check whether you have applied the slide titles correctly.
You can find it under "View".
The slide title is always shown in bold next to the slide number.
If you did not use a slide title or
entered it in a normal text field,
then no title will appear here and navigation in the presentation,
as performed by the screen reader, does not work optimally.
If you want to switch back to the normal view,
select “Normal” under “View” on the far left.
To add an image, graph, or diagram to your presentation,
select the appropriate symbol in an empty placeholder field.
We choose a pie chart.
You can enter the values ​​of your diagram in this table.
On the right under "Format Chart Area"
you can adapt the appearance of your diagram,
for example assign the colors of the University of Potsdam.
Always ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the color values.
Your diagram should also have a meaningful title.
Since people with visual impairment
cannot perceive the image independently,
you need a description, a so-called Alt Text.
You can add this by right-clicking on the selected field with your image
and choosing"Edit Alt Text" from the context menu.
The structure of an Alternate Text should be as follows:
1. The type of image (e.g. photo, line drawing, pie chart...),
2. a short description, as objective as possible
and 3. a copyright notice.
In general: Use technical terms
and put any terms quoted from the illustration in quotation marks.
If your image is a purely decorative element
that does not convey any information, you can also specify that,
by marking it as "decorative".
In this case your picture will be skipped by the screen reader
and does not require any Alternate Text.
If you want to create your own graphics with PowerPoint for your presentation,
you can do this with the help of the Shapes tool.
Of course, this graphic also needs an Alternate Text.
Currently we would have to assign a separate text to each individual object.
However, this does not make sense because
the graphic as a whole forms a meaningful unit.
Therefore, you should first group the elements of your graphic.
To do this, select all shapes
and then right-click for the context menu
or select "Group" under "Arrange".
You can now assign an Alternate Text to the entire image.
A note: If you want to export your presentation as a PDF, we recommend that you
save your composite graphic as a picture before exporting it.
This way you prevent the grouping from being lost during export
and the meaning of the graphic no longer being comprehensible.
To do this, select your entire graphic
and right-click to select "Save as Picture".
Then delete the graphic and load the picture
that has just been saved via "Pictures",
position it and provide an Alternate Text.
This way, the picture including the Alternate Text will definitely be displayed in the PDF.
The disadvantage is obvious: After converting it to a picture
you can no longer make any changes to your graphic.
The same applies to the use of “SmartArts”.
Here it can also happen that the assigned Alternate Text
is not retained during PDF export.
Just proceed exactly as described before
and save your "SmartArt" as a picture before exporting to PDF.
You can also add videos to your presentation.
These also require an Alternate Text.
AND: You need subtitles so that people with
hearing impairments can understand the video.
The same goes for audio pieces.
You should also include audio transcripts with videos.
When you are giving your presentation, you can also do this live,
by verbalizing the main visual elements your video contains.
If you want to add lists or bullet points to your presentation,
Always use the correct tools
for “Bullets” or “Numbering”.
Should one line of your list be subordinate
to another in the structure,
use the tab key instead of inserting spaces manually.
This way, the hierarchy of the content is not only
visually perceptible, but also for the screen reader.
The same goes for tables:
Create these with the tool provided for this purpose.
Select the Table tool in the content placeholder field
and determine the number of rows and columns.
Then insert your data and adjust the colors if necessary.
However, always make sure
that the information is understandable even without color highlighting.
Please avoid Excel spreadsheets,
since these are not correctly adopted when exporting as PDF.
In order for your table to be readable for blind people,
additional information must be added.
For example, Header Rows must be identified as such.
Only then the meaning of the individual cell texts become clear.
Your table also needs Alternate Text.
To add it, right-click on the table again and choose "Edit Alt Text".
In the 2016 version of PowerPoint
instead select "Format shape"
and under "Shape Options"> "Size and Properties"
you will find the Alt Text input field.
If your presentation should contain mathematical formulas, it is better
to insert them as a picture instead of creating them directly in PowerPoint,
because screen readers often have difficulties with formulas.
You can create a graphic of your formula online using a LaTeX equation editor,
for example www.zahlen-kern.de/editor
Enter your formula here, then download it
as a graphic and insert it into your presentation.
As Alternate Text, insert the formula according to LaTeX or MathML
or write it as text, just as one would pronounce the formula.
Does your presentation also contain links?
Inserted hyperlinks are immediately recognized as such by PowerPoint.
But you can also select any term
and right-click to access the "Hyperlink" control panel
and insert the link here.
Like this, the screen reader does not read
a complicated link, but understandable text.
In addition, you should add the so-called ScreenTip to the link,
so it's clear where the link leads to.
Now is the time to check the reading order of your presentation,
as a screen reader reads the elements of a slide
always in the chronological order
in which they were added to the slide.
This can lead to a discrepancy
between the visual and structural order.
Open the “Selection Pane” under “Arrange”.
Here you can see the order in which the slide elements are read out.
Attention: The lowest object in the list is read out first.
In our case, the slide title, then the text, then the graph.
If the order is not correct, you can drag the object
to the correct position with the mouse button pressed.
Before we check the accessibility of our presentation, a note:
Do not use animated slide transitions or similar gadgets.
On the one hand, these are lost in the PDF, on the other hand,
they are unnecessarily distracting and complicate readability.
Now open the "Review" tab and select "Check Accessibility"
You can see the Inspection Results on the right.
We forgot a slide title. We are now adding it.
On the left you can see the "Outline View",
which shows the structure of our presentation.
In case you want to make your presentation available
only as a PowerPoint file, you can do that now.
An additional export as PDF is useful
in case not everybody has the PowerPoint program.
So that people with visual impairment can follow the lesson well,
ideally, you should make the presentation available before the lesson
rather than after.
Under “File”> “Save As” select the “PDF” file format.
Use the “Options” button to make specifications
for the PDF export by choosing the following options:
"Document Properties" and "Document Structure Tags for Accessibility".
Deselect "Bitmap Text".
You can now start the export.
Step 3: Customize PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro
In order to be accessible, your exported PDF must
be finalized with the Adobe Acrobat Pro program.
If you have created your presentation correctly,
it shouldn't take much time.
We only cover the most important aspects here.
A detailed guide to creating accessible PDFs
can be found in the tutorial "Accessible PDF Documents"
and in the tutorial “Adapt existing PDFs to accessibility standards”.
Open your PDF and check the accessibility status once more.
To do this, open the menu item "Accessibility" in the toolbar on the right.
and start the "Accessibility Check".
The result is displayed on the left.
First, let's check the metadata. The title is correct.
For the screen reader to read the title of your presentation instead of the file name
we have to specify this under “File”> “Properties”.
In the “Initial View” tab, select the “Document Title”.
Check under "Advanced" whether
the document language has been correctly transfered.
Next we are asked to check
the logical reading order here as well.
To do this, we open the "Reading Order" tool on the left.
Each element has now been assigned a number, that shows
the order in which it is read by the screen reader.
In case something is in the wrong position
drag it to the correct one while pressing the mouse button.
It all looks good.
In the "Accessibility Check" we can click on "Pass".
The same applies to the point “color contrast”,
as we already paid attention to this aspect during the creation.
Here on the left you can also check the bookmarks of your presentation.
In our case there are no bookmarks yet.
Since we worked with slide titles in PowerPoint,
we can use the command "New Bookmarks from Structure"
and select the H1 heading here.
It corresponds to the "slide titles" that we assigned.
Navigating through the document with the keyboard and screen reader
is therefore possible without any problems.
As a last step you have to set the PDF/UA identifier.
Because for a PDF to be considered technically accessible,
the meta information must be available,
which marks the document as PDF/UA compatible.
To do this, open "Edit", click on the "Preflight" option
and select the wrench.
Under "Document info and Metadata"
select the menu item "Set PDF/UA entry"
and click on "fix" at the bottom right.
Now you can save the final PDF and make it available to the students.
Step 4: Give the presentation
A few more notes on the presentation:
Always signal to the students that you are ready
to respond to individual needs (verbally and in writing).
Pay attention to a clear presentation style at a moderate speed
and stay facing the students
to enable lip reading.
If possible, use a microphone in the lecture hall.
You can also use PowerPoint to create
live subtitles for your presentation.
To do this, select "Subtitle Settings" in PowerPoint
under "Slide Show" before the start of the event
and choose here which language your presentation and subtitles will be.
Also activate the function “Always Use Subtitles”.
Your presentation will now be subtitled live.
If this is not the case, at the start of the presentation
you can switch on subtitles in the slide show.
Announce the structure at the beginning of the presentation
and mention the current page number during the presentation.
If you use graphs, tables, pictures or videos,
you should verbalize them.
Videos should also have subtitles.
Provide a transcript for audios or spoken text.
Checklist
I summarize the most important steps again:
First you plan the content and structure of your presentation,
then create it with the correct tools and slide layouts.
You determine the appearance with the Slide Master.
Graphics, charts, videos and tables need an Alternate Text.
Then check the reading order and accessibility.
If you would like to provide your presentation as a PDF,
finalize it in Adobe Acrobat after the export.
During the lecture itself, make sure that it is easy
to understand and respond to the needs of the students.
If you do run into technical difficulties,
feel free to contact the
"Center for Information Technology and Media Management".