Software and technology for inclusive teaching

We can support you with using software and give advice on making accessible teaching materials. Read about how to make your teaching more inclusive.

Scanning text into PDFs and making Word documents

You may be thinking about scanning your teaching materials to turn them into a PDF. Unfortunately, students who use screen readers such as JAWS may not be able to read from a PDF that contains a scanned image of text.

What you can do:

Converting text into Braille

We don't have any software to convert documents into Braille. External companies can provide this service. For further information email disability@admin.cam.ac.uk

Creating PDFs, Microsoft Word documents and PowerPoint presentations

When creating documents you should:

  • add structure, such as titles, headings and subheadings
  • use styles to quickly apply a set of formatting choices consistently throughout your document.
  • use size 12 Arial or Tahoma font
  • add alt text to images
  • make sure the text is left aligned, not justified
  • use icons, labels and annotations instead of relying on colour to distinguish data

Guides and advice about creating accessible documents:

Using accessibility settings in Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings

Recording classes and lectures with Panopto

Panopto enables you to record lectures and upload them to Moodle.

Software and technology training

You can go on a course to help you produce accessible teaching materials in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint. Search for available courses.

Help and advice

You can get advice with software, technology and converting documents into accessible formats from your College or departmental IT Officer.

You can also contact University Information Services' service desk.