Creating Accessible Documents

This page provides you with various information, resources or tutorials to assist you in creating accessible course materials. Contact Accessible Education Center (AEC) to discuss with them how to work with students with special needs or learning styles. 

Canvas Best Practices

• Ally: The Accessibility Tool Integrated in Canvas

  • Ally is an accessibility tool in Canvas which guides faculty in checking and remediating their course content. It also provides students with alternative formats.

    In Canvas, select the Ally Course Accessibility Report in the left hand navigation menu. Then view the accessibility of your course content and use Ally’s guidance to remediate the content.  You can also select any gauge icon next to a document's title to view Ally's recommendations for remediation. 
    For assistance using Ally, contact eCampus@sjsu.edu.

• The Canvas Accessibility Checker

  • It is recommended to always use the Canvas Accessibility Checker as an extra way to check your course content. 

• Locating Accessible Materials

  • For assistance locating accessible alternatives to your course materials such as articles, ebooks and accessible PDFs, contact your subject librarian.

• Additional Canvas Resources

  • View the Canvas Faculty Resources and the Canvas Course Accessibility Checklist for guidance on using Canvas.

    As always, please be aware of copyright and fair use before sharing your content.

Document Best Practices

• General Document Accessibility Guidelines

  • Please see Accessibility at SJSU's Guidelines for Creating Accessible Content for clear guidelines.

• PDF Accessibility

  • Some best practices with PDFs are:

    Never use scanned PDFs.

    Link to an article’s permalink. Do not download the PDF of the article.

    Always check the accessibility of your Word or PowerPoint before converting selecting "File" and "Save as Adobe PDF". 

    Please see PDF Accessibility for more guidance. 

• Word, PowerPoint, and Excel Accessibility

  • Please see Microsoft's support pages for guidance on creating accessible Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents.

• Google Doc Accessibility

  • GrackleDocs is a Google Add-on which scans your documents, slides, and sheets and guides you in fixing any accessibility issues.

    This add-on is available to faculty and staff.

Interested in learning more about Accessibility? Consider enrolling in Accessibility with Ally: A Self-Directed Course. Complete all modules for a badge or just use it as a resource!