PowerPoint Accessibility: Best Practices

PowerPoint is a highly visual tool, so it has unique accessibility considerations. Most good practices for accessible documents also apply to slides, with one key difference: PowerPoint does not use a full heading structure. Instead, accessibility relies heavily on clear slide titles, built-in layouts, and correct reading order.

Best practices

Theme, layout, and slide titles

  • Choose a theme with strong color contrast and simple, uncluttered backgrounds.
  • If presenting in a classroom or using a projector, increase contrast and font size for readability.
  • Use PowerPoint’s built-in slide layouts instead of drawing your own text boxes.
  • Give every slide a unique, descriptive title. Detailed instructions are available in Add slide titles (Microsoft).
  • Use font sizes of 18 pt or larger during presentations.

Reading order

Reading order determines the sequence in which a screen reader or text-to-speech tool reads slide content. It should follow the visual layout of the slide.

  1. Title
  2. Subtitle or overview text
  3. Main written content
  4. Images, tables, or charts
  5. Footer content

Adjust reading order using the Selection Pane. Step-by-step guidance is available in Set the reading order of slide contents (Microsoft).

Text, color, and movement

  • Use readable fonts and avoid decorative scripts for body content.
  • Maintain strong color contrast between text and background.
  • Do not use color alone to convey meaning.
  • Avoid flashing or blinking animations when selecting transitions.
  • Guidance on choosing accessible slide designs is available in Use accessible themes and built-in layouts (Microsoft).

Links, images, and media

  • Create descriptive hyperlink text instead of “click here.”
  • Make sure hyperlinks are visually distinct.
  • Add alt text to meaningful images. Guidance on writing alt text is available in Alternative text for images (WebAIM).
  • Provide captions or transcripts for videos. Step-by-step instructions are available in Add captions to a video (Microsoft).
  • If exporting your slides, use options that preserve structure and tags.

Use live captions while presenting

Turning on live captions during your presentation supports many learners, including those who are hard of hearing, English language learners, and students who benefit from reading along.

To enable live captions:

  1. Select Slide Show.
  2. Choose Always Use Subtitles.
  3. Select your spoken and subtitle languages.
  4. Start the slide show to activate automatic captions.

More information is available in Present with real-time, automatic captions or subtitles in PowerPoint (Microsoft).

How to check if your slides are accessible

PowerPoint includes an Accessibility Checker that helps you find issues such as missing alt text, unreadable text, duplicate slide titles, or low color contrast.

  1. Go to the Review tab.
  2. Select Check Accessibility.
  3. Review the issues listed and follow recommended fixes.

Additional guidance is available in Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker (Microsoft).

Do a quick manual review

  • Check that every slide has a unique title.
  • Use the Selection Pane to confirm reading order.
  • Ensure text is readable when projected.

Additional resources

When sharing slides in eLC (D2L Brightspace), upload the original .pptx file whenever possible.
This lets students use features like notes, zoom, high contrast mode, and text-to-speech.
If you want to prevent edits, you can set the file to View Only, which keeps the presentation accessible while protecting the content.

Note: This guide shares general best practices for accessible PowerPoint design. A more detailed UGA-specific “Creating Accessible PowerPoint Slide Shows” guide is being developed and will be published on the Digital Accessibility Services Hub.

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