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Accessibility ribbon in PowerPoint: Accessibility made easier

Feature deep dive
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Hi, Office Insiders! I’m Peter Wu, a Principal Software Engineer on the PowerPoint team. I’m here to share that it’s now easier than ever to make your presentations accessible in PowerPoint for Windows, Mac, and the web. Introducing the Accessibility ribbon!

Accessibility ribbon in PowerPoint

The Accessibility ribbon brings together in one place all the tools you need to make your presentation accessible. The new ribbon complements the Accessibility Checker, which automatically alerts you to many of the common accessibility issues found in PowerPoint presentations.

With the Accessibility ribbon, you can access the tools needed to fix accessibility issues that arise as you’re working on your presentation. (If you are already using the Accessibility ribbon in Excel, you’ll find that the Accessibility ribbon in PowerPoint works in a similar way.)

How it works 

  1. Click Check Accessibility on the Review tab to open the Accessibility pane, and notice that the Accessibility ribbon appears automatically when the pane is open.Screenshot showing the Accessibility ribbon in PowerPoint.
  1. Use the different tools and options in the Accessibility ribbon to address any issues that the Accessibility pane has identified.

Scenarios to try

 

  • Click the Slide Title button to add a title to your slide, or to edit the title that’s already there. Or select a text box that you want to use for the title and click Slide Title to make it the title.
  • Illustrations and diagrams consisting of multiple objects are easier for screen-reader users to understand if they are grouped together (and include a description in the alt text). Select the objects and click Group > Group, then click the Alt Text button to add a description.
  • Captions allow people who are deaf or hard of hearing to participate in your presentation. Turn on live captions and subtitles before you present.

Tips and tricks

  • Before sharing a presentation with someone else, saving it to a public location, or presenting, be sure to first check for any accessibility issues and fix them using the Accessibility ribbon.
  • When presenting in Teams, use PowerPoint Live so participants can access the slides with a screen reader as you present.

Availability

This feature is rolling out to Office Insiders running:

  • Windows Current Channel (Preview) Version 2110 (Build 14527.10000) or later
  • Mac Current Channel (Preview) Version 16.55 (Build 21110701) or later

This feature is also available to desktop users of PowerPoint for the web.

Don’t have it yet? It’s probably us, not you.

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it.

Feedback 

We want to hear from you! If you have any feedback or suggestions about the Accessibility ribbon, you can submit them by clicking Help > Feedback.

Learn more about what other information you should include in your feedback to ensure that it’s actionable and reaches the right people. We’re excited to hear from you!

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