New Accessibility Updates for Word and Google Docs
From the Quick Access series
April 24, 2026 marks the federal deadline for digital accessibility under ADA Title II. At UC Davis, our commitment to accessibility will honor both the mandate and our Principles of Community as we remove barriers for all learners. Part of a series continuing from fall 2025, Quick Access this quarter will focus on improving accessibility in specific teaching and learning contexts. Find all the posts in this series by clicking the yellow Quick Access label at the end of the post.
For more on campus compliance with this law, see UC Davis Digital Accessibility Program Manager Brad Starkey-Owens’ conversation on digital accessibility with Dr. Andy Jones and check the campus Digital Accessibility site. Join the Digital Accessibility Program Manager for Digital Accessibility Q&A Wednesdays at 10:00 AM.
These Quick Access articles typically offer concrete steps you can take to make your instructional materials more accessible. Humor us this week as we step back from that action-oriented focus to share some software updates that will help make accessibility easier for all of us.
Google Docs has introduced native accessibility improvements that remove the need for additional licensing for most instructional use cases. Since March 2025, PDFs exported from Docs include structural tags for headings, paragraphs, tables, equations, and checkboxes. If a document creator were to reopen and then re-save a document, that would allow screen-reader users to navigate all major document elements rather than encountering inaccessible content.
Microsoft Word has also delivered meaningful accessibility updates, including improved default color contrast to better meet WCAG requirements, more accurate table evaluation in the Accessibility Assistant, improved automatic image descriptions, and better support for floating images (such as shapes containing text in a document), so screen readers can find and read them in the right place.
Reopening and resaving documents allows newer accessibility features to be applied automatically, a necessary step before exporting to PDF.
These updates support, rather than replace, existing accessibility practices. In most cases, issues can be resolved by reopening the file, checking it with accessibility tools, and resaving it as a PDF, helping instructors progress toward the April 2026 federal accessibility compliance deadline.
