Summary
Excel software is highly visual and relies on spatial relationships, like rows and columns, which aren’t always conveyed clearly through assistive technology. Issues such as merged cells, missing headers, and unlabeled charts can disrupt the logical reading order.
Body
Overview
This article is for university faculty, staff, and students to create and share accessible Excel spreadsheets. It explains why Excel spreadsheets may pose accessibility challenges and provides best practices and how-to documentation to help Excel spreadsheets meet digital accessibility standards.
Making Excel Spreadsheets Accessible
It is required that all digital content meets digital accessibility standards. Excel is powerful for working with data, but it presents accessibility challenges, especially for screen reader users. Excel software is highly visual and relies on spatial relationships, like rows and columns, which aren’t always conveyed clearly through assistive technology. Issues such as merged cells, missing headers, and unlabeled charts can disrupt the logical reading order.
Best Practices
To help make Excel workbooks accessible, follow these best practices from the Microsoft Excel Accessibility Quick Card by the Minnesota IT Services Office of Accessibility.
Quick Summary:
- Name Sheets Clearly: Give each sheet a unique, descriptive name and remove blank sheets.
- Start with Structure: Enter the title and key details in cell A1; merging cells for centering is acceptable.
- Organize Content: Hide unused rows and columns, define named ranges, and avoid blank cells in data tables (mark empty cells as “No data” if needed).
- Use Alignment Tools: Create spacing with alignment and resizing, not blank rows or columns.
- Define Table Headers: Use Table Design options to mark header rows/columns and give tables descriptive names.
- Describe Visuals: Add image and chart descriptions in nearby cells, not in alt text fields; mark decorative images appropriately.
- Accessible Links: Use meaningful link text (avoid “click here”); note links apply to entire cells.
- Color Contrast: Maintain WCAG ratios (4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text); preview in grayscale for clarity.
- Document Properties: Fill in title, subject, and author fields.
- Check Accessibility: Use Excel’s Accessibility Checker and perform manual checks for completeness.
Training
More Resources
Still Need Help?
Creative Production offers help with document formatting, design, and redesign if needed. Please note, Creative Production cannot ensure accessibility for content created by other users. They may need to re-create a document to ensure accessibly, if you choose to use their services. Costs apply. Submit a ticket to request Creative Production services
IT Solutions primarily supports digital accessibility for academic and course-related materials including document accessibility, captioning and transcription services. Support for other content may be available if time allows, with costs applying to non-course materials. Submit a ticket to request IT Solutions services