Using the Office Accessibility Checker

Microsoft Office products have a built-in accessibility checker that can assess your document and notify you of any potential problems. In many cases, the checker can also provide helpful information about how to fix the problems that it identifies.

We recommend that everyone use the accessibility checker before publishing their Microsoft Office documents. It is not an absolute measure of how accessible a document is, but it can help to identify any obvious problems.

To use the accessibility checker, click on the File tab and then click on the Check for Issues button in the Inspect Document section of the file window and select Check Accessibility.

Your results will pop up in a panel menu on the right side of the application window. If the checker finds any problems then it will present them to you in an itemized list. You can click on an item to see additional information (listed at the bottom of the panel), or double-click on an item to be taken to the content in question.