In this video, we'll briefly review the process for entering alt text in Word. We'll then show the process for providing descriptions for tables and other procedures for making tables more usable and accessible. Note that the procedures for performing these same functions in PowerPoint and Excel is almost the same. After watching this video, you should be able to use the tools and procedure described in this lesson in any of these three Office products. To start the process of adding alt text, we could manually scan our sample document for images and tables. However, we'll take this opportunity to demonstrate the built-in accessibility checker in Word. This is a tool for checking and correcting accessibility issues in Word documents, including missing alt text. A similar tool is available for PowerPoint and Excel. And the steps for running the tool and correcting issues are almost identical for each Office program. Keep in mind that the accessibility checker will not tell you if your alternate text is adequate. It will only flag images and tables without alt text. Note that this video demonstrates the accessibility checker in Word 2013 for Windows. If you're using a Mac, the accessibility checker is not a feature of any Mac version, unfortunately. You can, however, still implement the techniques you viewed in this video on the Mac version. To better follow the steps outlined in this video, you should turn on Ribbon under the View menu in Word for Mac. This will display a ribbon panel similar to that displayed in the Windows version. Let's now return to our Word document and begin the process of checking the document for accessibility issues. To start the accessibility checker, go to File. By default, you'll view the options under the Info menu. Select Check for Issues, and then Check Accessibility from the drop-down menu. An inspection report will appear in a panel on the right side of the screen. If you run the tool and see the error Unable to run the Accessibility Checker, Cannot check the current file type for accessibility issues, you are working with an older document format. Convert your document by selecting Convert from the File Info menu. You should then be able to run the accessibility checker. In the accessibility report, the inspection results displayed here are divided into errors and warnings. Errors are more serious issues that need to be corrected. Otherwise, they will block out some users from accessing content in the document. Warnings are issues that will make it difficult for some users to access the content. Select any of the items in the report list for an explanation of the problem caused by the issue, and the steps for correcting the error or warning. In this sample document, the first error group listed is for missing alt text for four items, a table and three pictures. We'll begin with the images. If we select Picture 2 under Missing Alt Text, we will be taken to the location of the item in the document. Picture 2 is a photo of a wheelchair ramp in a park during the winter. The caption informs us that this is a skating ring located in Ottawa, Canada. Notice that in the lower right panel, the accessibility checker provides instructions for adding alt text to the image. We right-click on the image to bring up the context menu, or control+mouse click on a Mac. Select Format Picture on Word for Windows, and then Layout and Properties. On Word for Mac, simply select ALT TEXT from the first Properties menu. The alternate text should be entered in the Description field. The content of the Description field is what is conveyed to assistive technology. As mentioned previously, alternate text should be as clear and concise as possible, less than 100 characters. The key to deciding how to describe an image with alt text is to consider what information the image is conveying. If this article was about parks or skating rings in Canada, an alt text stub, two individuals at a skating ring in Ottawa, Canada might be sufficient. However, since this article is about the advantages of considering accessibility from the beginning of a project, and this picture is demonstrating the drawbacks of adding wheelchair ramps to a structure after its construction, our alt text should provide information about the appearance and function of this wheelchair ramp. A description such as, long wheelchair ramp with sharp right turn providing access to a skating rink seems appropriate in this case. If we turn back to our inspection report, we'll see that the error for Picture 2 has disappeared from the list. Note that alt text can also be provided through the caption or by the surrounding text. To add a caption to an image, right-click on the image for the context menu, and select Insert Caption. Here we have entered the description we used for the alt text into the caption. When the caption or the surrounding text describes an image adequately, a very short alt text, such as, in this case, wheelchair ramp would be adequate for describing this item. In this case, it is even permissible to use the alt text to inform the listener to refer to caption or refer to preceding text. Note that if no text is entered in the Description field, a non-visual user reading the page with a screen reader would only hear the word graphic announced when reaching that image, not knowing if they are missing crucial content. Therefore, it is important not to leave the Description field blank for an image. Let's look at one more unlabeled image, Picture 1. This picture of an architectural drawing conveys no information related to the document. It's included to provide something of visual interest to the page, and reinforces the theme of design. Therefore, we could could use alt text to identify it as decorative image. In the next video, we'll pick up with alternate text for tables, and other strategies for making tables more accessible.
