The Accessibility Basics and Guidelines page outlines some of the basic items to keep in mind when creating an accessible document. Spreadsheets made in Excel require some special considerations and by nature are difficult documents to make fully accessible.
When possible, avoid sharing spreadsheets with patrons. Export your spreadsheet to a .pdf file, then make the .pdf accessible and share that with anyone who does not require editing permissions. When creating a PDF isn't possible, you can follow the steps below to help create a more accessible spreadsheet.
Many accessibility considerations are shared between Excel and the other Office 365 programs. Check the Accessibility Guidelines page for a more complete overview of requirements beyond Excel.
Excel, and all of the Office 365 programs, have a built-in accessibility checker which can automatically check your spreadsheet for each of the considerations listed on this page. When in doubt, finish the spreadsheet and run the accessibility checker, then follow its recommendations.
When possible, choose an accessible theme to style the entire spreadsheet. Microsoft provides a range of options for themes that are already following accessibility guidelines, which can be found before starting a new spreadsheet by searching for "accessible templates" in the File menu.
Manage the font type, styles, size, and color using the Font Settings menu, by clicking on the arrow in the bottom right of the Font section on the Home ribbon. Do not use color alone to distinguish information in the spreadsheet.
When adding a chart, image, or table to a spreadsheet, make sure to also add alternate text. Click the item, then from the Format tab, click on "Alt Text". Use the alt text field to explain the entire chart or table - it is not sufficient to write "a pie chart" or "a pie chart showing enrollment FTEs for 2010-2011" - sufficient alt text would read "a pie chart showing enrollment FTEs for 2010-2011, where 85% of the FTEs are undergrad, 10% are continuing ed, and 5% are extended ed".
There are some accessibility issues that are only applicable to Microsoft Excel. Excel tends to be the most difficult program to utilize a screen reader with, and fixing these issues can alleviate most of that difficulty.
A screen reader will stop to parse each individual sheet it encounters in a workbook. Make sure sheets are ordered correctly, named distinctively, and remove blank extra sheets from the workbook.
A screen reader will begin parsing a sheet in cell A1 - do not leave cell A1 blank. If a sheet is designed in such a way that a table or data set does not begin in cell A1, use that space to include a description of the sheet itself.
Do not use the merge or split cells formatting options. While they can be useful for formatting a sheet to print visually, they cannot be parsed correctly by screen readers.
