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Re: accessible word-wrap in word?

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From: Karen Sorensen
Date: Sep 19, 2016 7:50PM

Hi Vanessa,
Great question! Here's what I'd say to my faculty:
Floating images and text are not screen reader accessible because they
aren't in the standard flow of the document. The floating image and text
boxes float above the document's flow, and they aren't seen by a screen
reader. The images have to be inline in order to be in the flow of the
content. The columns idea seems like a good approach if that works for the
layout of the rest of the document. Does the whole page have to be in
columns then? (I don't know of a way to make short columns in MS Word
within just part of the page.)
A simpler way to go could be to make two copies of the document. One that
has the images inline and one that's got text wrap around the images. If
you have a student using assistive technologies provide them with the copy
with the images inline.
A better way to go though would be to use HTML and CSS where you can style
the page layout as you wish and keep the image and text inline with the
document flow.
Hope that helps.
Karen
Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses
www.pcc.edu/access
Portland Community College
971-722-4720
Twitter: @ksorensun