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Re: PowerPoint accessibility with text in outline view

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From: Karen McCall
Date: Feb 17, 2023 3:48AM

As far as I know, this is not a requirement or standard. It is a best practice.

When I do training, I advise participants that it is the text in the Outline view that will be converted to RTF/DOCX when creating an alternate format that for Braille or large print. It makes sense to use the default accessible placeholders and customize any slide layouts using them instead of using text boxes because you would need to copy and paste the contents of EVERY text box into the alternate format. This tends to waste time when the content could be more accessible from the start.

While I can Tab to a text box and my screen reader will read the content with no problem (unlike text boxes in Word) it is the extra work needed when an alternate format of the presentation is requested, that has me recommending that text boxes not be used.

Plus, we can use the default placeholders and either customize a slide layout in Slide Master view or on the slide canvas and change the attributes of that placeholder to meet our needs.

Cheers, Karen