Accessible document formats

Ideally, web content should be created as HTML (a webpage) rather than a separate document. But if a document or a spreadsheet is unavoidable, you must make sure that it is properly accessible.

Although document readers are improving all the time, some document formats (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint) are not accessible to everyone because you have to pay for the software to read them.

PDFs and CSV files are acceptable.

There is an option in Excel to save as a CSV file. It strips out much of the formatting so, if the formatting is important, you will need to save the document as a PDF.

Make Office documents accessible before saving them as a PDF.

Although we are gradually moving all our forms onto an online system, we currently have some forms different formats:

• we have some Word versions, so that they can be filled in electronically if you have access to Word, but we also include PDF versions to print off
• we are in the process of changing these to editable PDFs, which you can fill in online, or print off.
• Some forms are completed using our online forms system

All documents must have document properties added to them before they are uploaded to any website.