Overview
Outlook offers the same accessible features and tools throughout all their Microsoft Office products such as Microsoft Word. To learn how to incorporate these features into an email go to UDC’s Creating Accessible Word Documents page. Also, outlook also has additional accessibility features to help optimize an email.
Request an Accessible Email
One of the unique features in Outlook is that a person can notify a sender that they prefer to receive accessible emails. This feature is essential with anyone with a disability because they will let the content creator know to design emails with accessibility in mind.
This page provides instructions on how to request an accessible email.
Text Readability
As written text is one of the most critical aspects of an email, Outlook offers a text readability feature to ensure a wide array of readers can understand emails. This feature analyzes and email to determine its reading level and can be enabled via Outlook’s email options.
To enable this feature follow these steps Test your document’s readability.
Screen Readers
Screen readers can scan through emails, read calendar appointments, and help compose emails. To navigate through emails, open Outlook, then by using the “Tab” and “Shift + Tab” to navigate through your email list. To reply to a message use “CTRL + R” for emails with multiple recipients use “CTRL + Shift + R.”
Resources
- Make your Outlook email accessible
- Rules for Accessibility Checker
- Writing for Accessibility
- Test Your Documents Readability
- The Ultimate Guide to Accessibility
- Basic Mail tasks using a screen reader
- Keyboard shortcuts for navigating mail in Outlook
- Keyboard shortcuts for navigating calendar in Outlook 2016
- Keyboard shortcuts for Outlook
- Using a screen reader in Outlook 2016
