Exporting to Other File Formats

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Microsoft Word presents a unique context for presenting information, and it also presents a powerful capability for creating accessible documents in other formats, such as PDF.

While MS Word provides a lot of power for creating accessible documents, when you save your MS Word document to a different format, some of the accessibility enhancements might not translate to the new format.

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Be aware of the following concerns when you are saving your MS Word document to a different format:

• Rich Media and Dangerous Content
  Sometimes there is insufficient tagging support for rich information, templates, and SmartArt, and your accessibility enhancements might not be exported with the document.
• Layers of information (visual) vs DOM (semantic)
  Digital information is sometimes reduced to a visual element without any of the tagging or semantic information that helps technology understand how to deliver the information in an accessible way. This is an issue with MS Word templates, SmartArt, Text Boxes, and other rich/complex media.
• Lost in translation - the fancier the layout, the more likely it is to break.
  Sometimes the digital sequencing of information may become compromised as it is converted to a new format, even though the layout may look identical to the MS Word document. Sometimes the layout will be compromised instead, depending on the format you are exporting to.

In order to preserve as much as possible of the accessibility work you put into your MS Word document, ensure that you are preserving tagging (and advanced tagging) whenever you have the option.

Always check the accessibility of documents you convert/create from a MS Word document to ensure the content is accessible and that the meaning of your message has not been distorted.