Application-Specific Accessibility Fixes

Owned by Nate St George (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Mar 14, 2023 by Adonis Hamad (Unlicensed)
2 min read



This article will describe fixes for several issues with PowerPoint presentations and Word documents.

Adding Alt Descriptions to PowerPoint Images

Ally may tell you that a PowerPoint presentation contains images that are missing an alternative description. If that occurs, you can follow the steps below to rectify the issue.

Ally provides instructions on how to write a good alternative description, in case you're not familiar. In general, you want to describe the image and include any text in the image.



  • Open the PowerPoint file on your computer

  • Select the image

  • Click the "Picture Format" tab and locate the "Format Pane" button

  • Select the "Size and Properties" tab, and then "alt text" from the dropdown

  • Add text to the description field, don't worry about title

  • Save the file and reupload it to Blackboard

Adding Headings to a Word Document

Ally may tell you that a Word document is missing headings. If that occurs, you can follow the steps below to rectify the issue.

Read the Ally feedback for more information about why headings are important, how to use headings effectively, and where to find tutorials to help you add headings to the document.



  • Open the document in MS Word

  • Highlight the text that you'd like to convert to a heading

  • Find the "Styles" pane at the top under the "Home" tab

  • Select the appropriate heading type



  • Make sure you're using the headings consistently, and avoid exceeding 6 header levels

  • Save the Word file and reupload it to Blackboard

Adding Headers to Data Tables in Word


Ally may tell you that a table in your Word document is missing headers. This is easy to fix.

  • Open the document in Word

  • Highlight the first row in your table that explains what's in each column

  • From the "Table Design" tab at the top, check the box for "Header row"

  • Optionally, right click the highlighted row, select "Table Properties" and check "Repeat as header row"

    • If the table spans multiple pages, Word will automatically copy the header row at the top of each page

  • Save the document and reupload it to Blackboard

Exporting a Word Doc as a Tagged PDF

If you export a Word document as a PDF, you can lose some of the accessibility features built into Word documents. Ally let let you know if this happens by giving you a warning that says you have uploaded an untagged PDF. You can tell Word to export tagged PDFs.

  • Open the file in Word

  • Click "File" > "Save As..."

  • Select "PDF" from the File Format dropdown

  • Below the File Format selection, you will see some options. Find the "Best for electronic distribution and accessibility" option and select it

  • Export the file and upload it to Blackboard

Content adapted from the Blackboard Ally Communication and Adoption Toolkit - CC BY 3.0

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