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Publishing Accessible Documentation

Publishing Accessible Documentation

Publishing Accessible Documentation

Status: Live
Published: 01/07/2021
Security level: Official
Amended / Internally developed: No
Live on platform: 23/04/21
Retired on platform:
Target Audience:
Authoring body: Government Digital Services (GDS) & Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO)
Grading: no grading applied
Guidance
Abstract

There is a need under the Equality Act 2010 to ensure documents are readily available to users who have additional accessibility needs. This document explains how to publish accessible documents to meet the needs of all users under the accessibility regulations.

It covers:

  • Writing accessible documents
  • Making non-HTML documents accessible
  • Creating a PDF/A for archiving purposes
    • To save a PDF/A in Word, click Save As, change Save as type to PDF, click Options and tick 'PDF/A compliant'

The authors and National Standards Assurance Board accept that there is still a place for PDF documents, especially for archival purposes, but to ensure they are accessible in the future, they should be stored as PDF/A not the normal PDF format.

[Added September 2021]

Category: Office Productivity & Collaboration Systems