Making documents everyone can read

This guide is for anyone at a small charity who makes newsletters, reports, forms, flyers or social posts. You don't need special software or a design degree. After reading, you'll know the handful of habits that let blind, low-vision, dyslexic and older readers use your documents, and how to check your work with free tools you already have.

Your website has its own rules, covered in your first charity website. Choosing brand colors is in brand basics. This guide is about everything else you write and share.

Why it matters

The CDC says more than 1 in 4 U.S. adults have some type of disability. Some of the people you serve, your volunteers and your donors are among them, whether you know it or not.

Many blind and low-vision people use a screen reader, software that reads a document aloud or sends it to a braille display. A screen reader can only use what's built into the file. If a heading only looks big and bold, it can't tell it's a heading. If a photo has no description, it may read the file name or skip it.

The Department of Justice's ADA guidance on effective communication says businesses and nonprofits that serve the public must provide auxiliary aids and services when needed. Its examples include large print and accessibility features in electronic documents. Making documents accessible from the start is far easier than fixing them when someone asks.

Accessible documents also help people without a disability: someone reading on a phone, someone tired after a long shift, someone who reads English as a second language.

Start with plain language

The federal plain language guide at Digital.gov says plain language means communicating clearly for your specific audience. Its main tips:

• Use active voice, which "makes it clear who should do what." Write "Bring your ID," not "ID must be brought."
• Use present tense where you can.
• Turn hidden verbs back into verbs: "we review applications," not "we conduct a review of applications."
• Keep sections short, with clear headings, and use lists for easy scanning.

Plain words help everyone, and they help screen reader users most, because listening is slower than skimming.

Use real headings

A heading style marks text as a heading inside the file, not just on the screen. Screen reader users can jump from heading to heading, the way sighted readers skim.

• In Word: select the text, then pick Heading 1, Heading 2 or Heading 3 from the Styles gallery on the Home tab. Microsoft advises using the built-in styles and not skipping levels: Heading 1, then 2, then 3.
• In Google Docs: select the text, then choose Format, Paragraph styles, and pick a heading. Headings also feed your table of contents.

Don't make headings by just making text bigger or bold. Use the built-in Title style for the document title, then Heading 1 for main sections, and write headings that say what's in the section.

Color and contrast

Contrast is how much text stands out from its background. The W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), the international standard, ask for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text and 3 to 1 for large text. Large text means at least 18 point, or 14 point bold.

Section508.gov, the federal government's accessibility site, adds two practical points. First, judging contrast by eye is unreliable, so use a checker. Second, never use color alone to carry meaning. If you mark overdue tasks in red, also add a word like "Overdue" or a symbol.

Watch for text laid over photos on covers and flyers. The contrast changes across the image, so check the lightest spot behind the words, or put the text on a solid panel.

Alt text that says what matters

Alt text (alternative text) is a short written description of an image, read aloud by screen readers. Section508.gov says alt text should give the relevant content of the image, rather than simply describe how it looks, and should be short and to the point.

Ask yourself: why is this picture here? Then write that.

• A photo next to a story about your food pantry's new freezer: "Volunteers loading the new walk-in freezer with donated produce." Not "Photo of people."
• A chart: start with the type, such as "Bar chart," then give the main point. Put the full numbers in a table or the text nearby.
• A flyer image with words on it: include the words, word for word.
• A decorative border or swirl: mark it as decorative, so screen readers skip it.

Microsoft also advises keeping it to a sentence or two and not starting with "an image of."

To add alt text in Word, select the picture and choose Alt Text. In Google Docs, select the image, open Image options and choose Alt text. Google notes you should check any alt text the program writes for you automatically.

Link text

The W3C explains that screen reader users can pull up a list of every link in a document and choose from it. A list of ten "click here" links tells them nothing. Write link text that makes sense on its own.

• Instead of: "To volunteer, click here."
• Write: "Read our volunteer sign-up guide."

Microsoft gives the same advice for Word: avoid "click here" and "learn more," and use the name of the page you're linking to.

Tables

Use tables for data, not for laying out a page. The W3C's tables tutorial says accessible tables need header cells marked as headers, so a screen reader can announce "Date" or "Amount" as the reader moves across a row.

In Word, turn on the header row in the table's design options, and type real column names in the top row. Microsoft advises avoiding blank cells, merged or split cells, and tables inside tables. If a table is getting complicated, split it into two simple ones.

PDFs

PDFs are hard to fix after the fact, so build accessibility into the source document first.

1. Write the document in Word or Google Docs using the habits above.
2. Run the accessibility checker and fix what it finds.
3. Export a tagged PDF. Tags are hidden labels that tell a screen reader which part is a heading, a list or a table. In Word for Windows, use File, Save As, choose PDF, click Options, and make sure "Document structure tags for accessibility" is checked.

Section508.gov notes that PDFs are often not the most accessible or mobile-friendly choice, and federal policy tells agencies to prefer web pages and use PDFs only when necessary. For anything people need to read on a phone, like event details or how to apply for help, put the information on your website or in the email itself, and offer the PDF as an extra. Keep the Word version handy too, so you can send it to anyone who asks.

Social media posts

Section508.gov gives clear advice for social posts:

• Add alt text to every image. X, LinkedIn and Facebook each have a field for it. Don't repeat what's already in the post text.
• Capitalize each word in a hashtag, like #FoodDriveSaturday. This is called camel case. Without it, screen readers may read the hashtag as one long jumble.
• Go easy on emoji. Screen readers describe each one aloud, so a row of five hearts is read as five separate descriptions. Put any emoji at a natural stopping point, like the end of a paragraph, not between sentences.
• Caption your videos.
• Check contrast on any image or GIF with words on it.

For more on posting, see social media for small charities.

Flyers and printed material

Printed flyers follow the same ideas: real contrast, no meaning carried by color alone, and clear, plain words. Microsoft suggests familiar sans-serif fonts such as Arial or Calibri, and avoiding all capital letters and lots of italics or underlining.

Put the key facts, such as what, when, where and how to get help, in text that's big and clear. Keep a digital version you can email, since a screen reader can't read paper. The ADA guidance lists large print as one way to communicate effectively, so be ready to print a larger copy if someone asks.

Check your work with free tools

• Word's Accessibility Checker: on the Review tab, choose Check Accessibility. A pane lists errors and warnings with how to fix each one. It also works in Word for the web.
• Google Docs: there's no checker like Word's, so check by hand. Check that every heading appears in your table of contents or outline, that images have alt text, and test contrast with a free online contrast checker.
• A listening test: Microsoft suggests testing with Immersive Reader or a screen reader, so you hear your document the way some readers will.

Section508.gov warns that Word may flag low contrast without telling you the actual ratio, so check your colors with a contrast checker too.

Accessible documents checklist

• Fix your main templates with heading styles and tested colors
• Add alt text to every meaningful image
• Replace "click here" links with descriptive text
• Export PDFs with accessibility tags turned on
• Run an accessibility check before you send or post

If you'd like a volunteer to review a report or flyer for accessibility, ask a member charity for help through the Exchange.

General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules change and every situation is different, so check the official sources and talk to a qualified professional before you act.