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:
- Copy and paste (or type up) the text from your teaching materials into a Word document. Screen readers can read a Word document.
- Convert the PDF with the scanned image of text into a Word document. You'll need to have a paid version of Adobe to do this. Follow Adobe Acrobat's guide to convert a PDF into a Word document.
- Use Sensus Access to create an alternative format document
- You can also speak with the subject and/or College librarians for advice
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:
- PDFs in Microsoft Windows
- PDFs in Adobe Acrobat - you'll need to have a paid version of Adobe to do this
- Word document step by step accessibility guide
- PowerPoint step by step accessibility guide
- PowerPoint accessibility YouTube video guide to manage live captions on a Zoom call
Using accessibility settings in Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings
- Teams accessibility guide
- Teams guide about raising a hand and taking turns to speak. This is particularly helpful to Deaf, hearing and/or visually impaired participants.
- Teams accessibility and live captions YouTube video guide to get the most out of Teams and learn how to turn live captions on
- Teams training, tips and advice (you'll need Sharepoint access)
- Teams and JAWS screen reader guide
- Zoom accessibility options
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.