(Re)introducing Ally

Ensure that your documents and presentations stay accessible when converting to PDF.

Although keeping your content in the original source file is the best way to ensure the document remains accessible, many instructors prefer to export their documents and presentations as PDFs. When exporting as PDF, it’s important to check your export settings to make sure that the PDF will be tagged. This makes sure the PDF is easy to navigate.

If a PDF isn’t tagged, the file gets a low accessibility score indicator.

Select the Accessibility score indicator to learn more and add a description.

Tag a PDF

You need to fix this issue in the original source file. For example, in Microsoft^® Word, open the file, save as a tagged PDF, and upload the updated file to your course. Select How to tag a PDF for step-by-step guidance on how to do this.

1. Select How to tag a PDF and select Yes.
2. Open the source file on your computer.
3. Save the file as a tagged PDF.
   • Microsoft Word: Select File and Save As. Select PDF from the File Format menu. Select Best for electronic distribution and accessibility and select Export.
   • Microsoft PowerPoint: You can’t save PowerPoint files as tagged PDFs. Upload the PowerPoint file instead.
   • *While you can attempt to tag a PDF in Adobe Acrobat (choose All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Automatically tag a PDF), Adobe still suggests using an authoring application (ex. Microsoft Word) for best results (see Creating accessible PDFs, section Tag the PDF).
4. Upload the updated file to your course.

If you still have the instructions open in the instructor feedback panel, select Next and Browse to upload your file. If you don’t have the instructor feedback pane open, select the Accessibility score indicator next to the file in your course and select Browse to upload your file.

Upload the original source file

Another option is to replace the PDF with the original source file, if you have it.

1. Select How to tag a PDF and select Yes.
2. Select Upload original document.
3. Select Browse and upload the original source file.

Add a library reference

It might be difficult for you to find the original source file. Reaching out to your library or accessibility services before the start of the term can help make sure students who need those formats don’t fall behind.

You can also add a library reference to Ally to help your students.

1. Select No when asked if you can get hold of a text-based version.
2. Select Yes when asked if the document or presentation can be found in the library.
3. Fill out as much information in the Ally feedback form as you can and select Add reference.

After you add the library reference, students can access the document information by going to the file, and selecting Alternative formats from the menu next to the file name. Select Library reference.

Alternative formats

If you select No to both the text-based and library questions in the Ally feedback, Ally generates alternative formats for students to use. Unfortunately, this does not fix the tagging issue so it won’t improve the score. You will still want to tag the PDF when possible.

Everyone should be able to read your text.

Ally’s contrast checks verify if there is enough contrast between the text color and its background color. Text with poor contrast can be difficult to read for everyone, but especially for students with visual impairments such as color blindness. Additionally, low contrast can cause eye strain, makes content hard to discover and scan, and causes frustration.

Ally uses the contrast requirements specified as part of the WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines.

Fix the contrast in your file

If your text has poor contrast, you need to fix it in your presentation or document software. Upload the new file to Ally when you’re ready. Select How to fix contrast for step-by-step guidance on how to do this. Below, we will use Microsoft Office 365 (Word) as an example.

1. Select How to fix contrast and follow the instructions.
2. Open the original document on your computer. If you don’t have a copy of the file on your computer, leave the instructor feedback panel and download the file from the course.
3. Change the contrast of the text following the directions from Ally. Examples below:
   • Microsoft^® Office: Select the text. Open the Font Color menu and choose a new color with more contrast.
4. Use a tool like the Colour Contrast Analyser from The Paciello Group to check the contrast of the text if you need to verify.
   • The Colour Contrast Analyser can be used on websites, PowerPoints, PDFs, InDesign files, and more.
5. Save the file.
6. Upload the updated file to your course.

If you still have the instructions open in the instructor feedback panel, select Next and Browse to upload your file. If you don’t have the instructor feedback panel open, select the Accessibility score indicator next to the file in your course and select Browse to upload your file.

Fix the contrast in your WYSIWYG content

Create or edit content in your course WYSIWYG editor. As you type or make changes, the Ally score updates immediately.

Learn more on how to fix text contrast issues in your course WYSIWYG editor

Text contrast best practices

You can make low-effort adjustments to improve text readability; options include:

• Use fonts with wide character strokes.
• Use a font size of at least 12px. If using a font with thin character strokes, use at least 16px.
• Only use “thin” fonts on dark backgrounds.
• Use light text on dark backgrounds.
• Use dark text on light backgrounds.
• Avoid these color combinations:
  • Green and red
  • Green and brown
  • Blue and purple
  • Green and blue
  • Light Green and yellow
  • Blue and grey
  • Green and grey
  • Green and black

Headings make navigating documents easier for all.

Reading long, dense text documents can be a daunting task for learners. Well-structured documents help students organize and process texts. By using headings in your document styles, you can design sections and sub-sections for your documents. Headings can help students navigate and comprehend texts, and are essential for screen readers.

If your document is missing headings, the file gets a medium accessibility score indicator.

Fix this issue in your word processing software and upload a new file when ready. Select the Accessibility score indicator to learn how to do this. Select What this means for an explanation.

Add headings to your document

You need to fix this issue in your word processing software. Open the document, add headings, and upload the updated file to your course. Select How to add headings for step-by-step guidance on how to do this.

Always choose “Heading 1” for level 1 headings, “Heading 2” for section headings, “Heading 3” for subsection headings, etc. “Normal” is used for paragraphs. Select your preferred software instructions in the instructor feedback panel and select How to create good headings for some quick tips.

1. Select How to add headings and follow the instructions.
2. Open the file on your computer.
   • If you don’t have a copy of the file on your computer, leave the instructor feedback panel and download the file from the course.
3. Add headings.
   • Microsoft Office 365 (Word): Select the text you want to make a heading. Select Home and choose the heading you want from the Styles group.
   • Microsoft Office 365 (PowerPoint): Powerpoint uses titles and subtitles in place of headings. Ally enforces a minimum of 1 title for every 7 slides. Therefore you do not need to worry about a style group, but rather that you have titles in place.
     • It is recommended that if you have the same topic over many slides, that you title those slides “Topic # of #“, and not multiple slides of “Topic Cont.”
4. Save the file.
5. Upload the updated file to your course.

If you still have the instructions open in the instructor feedback panel, select Next and Browse to upload your file. If you don’t have the instructor feedback pane open, select the Accessibility score indicator next to the file in your course and select Browse to upload your file.

Add a rich description to images and graphs to improve comprehension.

Images can be a great way to engage your learners with different modes of learning, and can help communicate complex ideas to students. For students with visual impairments, image descriptions that explain the content of an image are crucial for their learning. For all students, text descriptions can provide deeper context to aid their comprehension.

Image descriptions are often called “alternative descriptions”, “alternative text”, and “alt text”. This is because they provide a text-based, descriptive alternative to the image.

Ally checks for image descriptions anywhere there is an image. This includes image files and files that include images, for example, a document or presentation.

Select the Accessibility score indicator to open the instructor feedback panel. Follow the guided steps to add descriptions to your images. 

Locate the image missing a description

The preview highlights where specific accessibility issues can be found in the document. Highlights show every occurrence of one issue type at a time. For example, if your images are missing alternative descriptions, the highlights show you every place this specific issue occurs.

Add descriptions to a freestanding image file

Check the standalone image files you upload into Moodle. When you’re ready, add your image description to the text field in the instructor feedback panel and select Add.

Make sure your description is more than just the title of the file, or Ally will report an accessibility error. Describe the image and what’s important. Mention any text in the image to improve your score. To learn more, see Writing good descriptions.

Mark an image file as decorative

If your image is only for visual effects and doesn’t contain information relevant to the learning content, select Indicate image is decorative.

Alternative descriptions aren’t necessary for decorative images. Your accessibility score improves. This helps assure students of the purpose of those files. More on decorative images on the web accessibility initiative website

Add descriptions to images in other files

This section relates to images contained within an authoring or publishing file such as a Microsoft Word document. Since many files include images, it is important that the images contain an alternative description, to label document images and help students with visual impairments.

If your presentation or document has images missing alternative descriptions, you need to fix these in your presentation or document software. Upload the new file to Ally when you’re ready. Select How to add descriptions for step-by-step guidance on how to do this.

Not sure how to write effective alternative descriptions? Make sure your description is more than just the title of the file, or Ally will report an accessibility error. Describe the image and what’s important. Mention any text in the image to improve your score. To learn more, see Writing good descriptions.

1. Select How to add descriptions and follow the instructions.
2. Open the file on your computer.
   • If you don’t have a copy of the file on your computer, leave the instructor feedback panel and download the file from the course.
3. Add descriptions to your images.
   • Microsoft Office 365 products: Double or right-click on an image to open the Format Picture panel. Select Size & Properties and Alt Text. Add the description text. Don’t worry about the title.
4. Save the file.
5. Upload the updated file to your course.

If you still have the instructions open in the instructor feedback panel, select Next and Browse to upload your file. If you don’t have the instructor feedback panel open, select the Accessibility score indicator next to the file in your course and select Browse to upload your file.

Add image descriptions to your course WYSIWYG content

Go to your course content and edit it to see the score. Select the score to open the Instructor Feedback panel and add a description for the image.

Learn more on how to fix content in your course WYSIWYG editor

Writing good descriptions

Follow these best practices to write good alternative text descriptions for your images:

• Describe the image based on the page context. Convey the full meaning of the image.
• Avoid saying “image of” or “picture of”. Screen readers automatically announce images as images.
• Be concise.
• Write narratives for complex images like infographics. Put this narrative on the page immediately following the infographic. Include an anchor link at the top of the page to view the text alternative. See an example of an infographic with a text alternative.
• Avoid images of text. If you can’t avoid it, copy the text into the alternative description.
• Say something new. Don’t repeat alternative descriptions on the same page. Don’t repeat what is already said on the page.
• Identify images that don’t represent relevant content as decorative.

Why are alternative image descriptions important?

There are many reasons to use alternative descriptions with your images.

• Alternative descriptions, or text, are in the WCAG 2.1 guidelines
• Students can search for an image
• Students with visual impairments have difficulty perceiving images
• Student with a poor network connection may have difficulty perceiving images
• Screen readers can’t read images
• Some students learn better from descriptions than images
• Text scales better than most images when the screen or page is enlarged

Correct language set makes documents and presentations easier for all.

For students with visual impairments, a document with the correct language set is crucial for enabling audio or screen readers to read the text in the correct language and accent.

For all students, a proper language set can suggest grammatical and spelling corrections following the rules of a specific language making the content easier to read.

What language issues could a file have?

A document or presentation could have a language wrongly set or have no language set:

• Wrong language set: The document has a different language than the one the text is written in, which could create trouble for screen readers when identifying the language to read. Or, when software recognizes grammar and spelling mistakes incorrectly.
• No language set: the document doesn’t have a recognizable language to check the content against.

To set the correct language in your document or presentation, select the Accessibility score indicator to open the Instructor Feedback panel and follow the guided steps.

Set the language in your document

You need to fix this issue in the original source file, for example, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Adobe Acrobat PDF. Upload the file to Ally when you’re ready.

From the Instructor Feedback panel, select How to set a language for step-by-step guidance on how to do this.

1. Select How to set a language.
2. Locate the file on your computer or select download the original directly from Ally.
3. Set the language the text is written in:
   • Example: Microsoft Office 365:
     • Microsoft Word: Select the text. Go to the Review tab, select Language (in PC, additionally, select Set Proofing Language) and choose the language from the dialog box.
     • Microsoft PowerPoint: Go to the View tab, choose Outline view, and select all the text on the left side. Next, from the top menu, go to Tools, select Language, and choose the language from the dialog box.
       • If your presentation doesn’t have proper headings applied, we recommend you fix the headings before fixing the language. When a presentation does not have headings applied, you will have to set the language for each text element which can be time-consuming.
     • If certain sentences or paragraphs are written in a different language, select those individually and repeat the steps.
4. Save the file.
5. Upload the updated file in Ally to replace the previous one.
6. See the new score for your document. Great work!

If you don’t have the Instructor Feedback panel open to upload the fixed file, select the Accessibility score indicator in your course and select Browse to upload your file.

You need to fix this issue in the original source file. The best way to add a PDF title is with an editable source document, such as Microsoft Office. Select How to add a title for step-by-step guidance on how to do this.

For this example, we will use Microsoft Office 365 (Word):

1. Select How to add a title for directions.
2. Open the Word file, or PDF, in Microsoft Office 365.
3. Click File from the menu and select the Info tab.
4. In the Properties section, click the Add a Title field to add a document title. Alternatively, click Advanced Properties under the Properties section title.
5. In the Properties dialog box, click the Summary tab. Fill out a title in the Title field and click OK.
   • A title is a short descriptive sentence of what the document is about. For example, file name New York traffic.pdf vs title “New York traffic study results.”
6. Save the changes you made.
7. If you are changing the document back to a PDF, make sure to do a Save as or Save a copy, and within the Save as dialog box –
   • Choose PDF in the Save as type list, and
   • Click the Options button in the same dialog box. Make sure the Document structure tag for accessibility check box is selected.
   • Click OK and save the PDF.

After saving, you will need to upload the newest version of your document. The easiest way to do this is to go back to your Ally accessibility feedback, click upload a new file, and save.

*This description has been partially rewritten.