Karen McCall
Microsoft Office 365 for Windows

This page is devoted to how to tutorials and best practices documents for both using Microsoft Office for Windows if you are using adaptive technology and how to crate accessible documents. For Karlen Communications, these two components are one. As people using adaptive technology we must create accessible content and as people creating accessible content, we must have a good idea of accessibility issues in using the applications. It is often surprising what we think is not accessible...but is.

I’m in the process of updating all of the tutorials on this page. I’ve created a FREE course in the Karen McCall School on Teachable. The updated material will be added as I update it. I’ll keep this older material here. They are still valid. The updates include strategies for using the tools with the keyboard and any updates to the tools to improve accessibility.

Microsoft Office Tutorials and Resource Documents on Teachable (Direct Link)

PowerPoint Speaker Notes as Tagged PDF.

Using Advanced Features in Word with the Keyboard

These are older versions of tutorials. The updated versions are in the Microsoft Office Tutorials and Resources in my Teachable LMS. However, many of the techniques and keybord commands are still valid.

Avoid Using the Backstage Area of Office 2013/2016

Reading and Customizing Status Bar information

Importing and Exporting Styles

Customize a Table of Contents

Creating an Index

Footnotes and Endnotes

Citations and Bibliography

Track Changes, Comments and Comparing Documents

Customize a Keyboard Shortcut (Word)

Accessible Document Design

Add Accessible Images to Documents - updated.

Accessible Slide Sample Templates (Samples you can use). This is a PPTX document so you might be asked if you really want to open it, or it may open in Protected view.

Tables and Columns in Word documents (do not use tables for design layout...ever!) - contains sample documents.

Text Boxes and Accessibility

Adding Accessible PowerPoint Placeholders to Slides

Word and PowerPoint: Accessible Document Design - This is a zipped file and contains a combination of Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents.

Word 2013 Settings - Ease of Use (updated February 2015).

Accessible Document Design 2015 - single PDF document.

Accessible Document Design 2015 - PDF document with attachments.

Swapping Style Sets - this tutorial is for an older version of Word but the steps still work. Style Sets are found under the Design Ribbon in Word 2016, not the Home Ribbon.

One or Two Page Tutorials

These documents are one or two pages of quick instructions for those of you who "just want to know how to do it" and have an understanding of why you are "doing it." They can be used for training to support the larger documents with explanations. My intent is that both the short and long documents will be used together.

Colour Contrast Analyzer from the Paciello Group.

Contextual links in Word.

Accessible lists in Word.

Accessible list spacing in Word.

Alt Text on images and tables in Word.

Captions on images and tables in Word.

Clearing formatting from the Home Ribbon in Word.

Clearing Formatting through Word Options.

Headings in Word.

Pinning documents to the Recent list.

Protected View in Office.

Putting headings at the top of the next page in Word.

Tables of Content in Word.

Templates in Word.

Turn off Reading View for e-mail attachments and downloaded documents in Word.

Unlink Field Codes in Word Documents

If you've created a Word document with a linked Table of Contents, Table of Figures, Table of Tables, links and/or a Bibliography, you may need to unlink those items before sending them to be published. There is a tool in Word for doing that. There is no keyboard command for this tool but you can add it to the Quick Access Toolbar.

Here are the steps:

Press Alt + F, T for the File/Backstage area, Word Options.
In the Word Options dialog, press Q for Quick Access Toolbar.
Tab into the settings for the Quick Access Toolbar and in the list of commands, choose All commands.
Press Tab to move to the actual list of all commands.
Press U for Unlink Fields or Unlink Field Codes…forget the exact words but you’ll know it when you land on it.
Press Alt + A to Add it to your Quick Access Toolbar.
Tab to the OK button and press Enter.

Each item on the Quick Access Toolbar has a corresponding number, for example, on my Quick Access Toolbar, if I press Alt followed by 4 (do not press them together), I put focus in the Apply Styles Pane. While in the Quick Access Toolbar settings you can move items up or down so that they have different numbers depending on how often you use them. The order in which they appear in the list of tools on the Quick Access Toolbar corresponds to the number you will use to activate them.

When you need to unlink things like links, citations, tables of content, bibliography, tables of figures and so forth, select them and then go to the Quick Access toolbar and activate the Unlink Fields/Unlink Field Codes.

If you need to make sure that all linked items in your document are unlinked, select all of the document (Ctrl + A) and then activate the Unlink Fields/Unlink Field Codes from the Quick Access Toolbar.

This tool has been around since at least Word 95/97...who knew!?

Accessibility Resources from Other Sources

Checklist: Create Accessible E-mail (Outlook)

Narrator Keyboard Updates - YouTube video with captions. Note about this video - the author uses the term "headers" instead of headings. When he says H and Shift + H move you forward and backward through "headers" he really means headings in the document and not table headers or page headers.

What’s New in Accessibility for Developers and Users (April 2016). This is a presentation by Microsoft on the investments in accessibility.

Karen McCall Microsoft Office 365 for Windows