Office 365 – Microsoft accessibility

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A monitor displaying the screen reader feature.

Work with assistive technologies

Office 365 applications work seamlessly with screen readers and keyboards on most devices. Step-by-step guidance is available per application to help you get started.

Use Office 365 with screen readers

Someone types on a laptop with an Outlook calendar open.

Type what you want to do

Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications without navigating the command ribbon. You can use Tell Me to assist with formatting, discover the difficult-to-find capabilities and even get scoped help in Office 365 using everyday language.

Do things quickly with Tell Me

An email in Outlook with the Accessibility checker feature on.

Remind all to check accessibility

Office 365 offers a MailTip in Outlook on the web to inform coworkers of your preference for accessible content. This prompt reminds them to run Accessibility Checker before sending an email to you and fix any issues that might make the content difficult for people with disabilities to consume.

Request accessible content

A man uses Office Lens with his smartphone to look at text from a book.

Go paperless with Office Lens

Office Lens helps you transform text on a printed page into digital content that can be read aloud. To empower you to get an image of exactly what you're trying to capture, Office Lens on iOS can tell you to move back, to the right, or in other directions to get the full page in the frame.

Explore Office Lens accessibility

A woman, who is hard of hearing, presents in front of a screen with captions.

Present with real-time subtitles

Display autogenerated subtitles on a presentation in any of 60+ supported languages with the Presentation Translator add-in for PowerPoint for PCs. Additionally, let each audience member follow along with captions displayed in their chosen language on any device with Microsoft Translator.

Get Presentation Translator Get Microsoft Translator

Someone working on a Biology report in Sway.

Add captions for videos

Create multimedia presentations that are engaging and accessible with Office 365 applications such as PowerPoint and Sway that enable you to add captions for embedded videos.

Add captions in PowerPoint Add captions in Sway

A woman wears headphones and watches a video with subtitles on a laptop.

Autogenerate captions for videos

Share videos securely across your organization in an accessible format with Microsoft Stream. Check the option to have closed captions and searchable transcripts in English and Spanish autogenerated while uploading videos.

Get Microsoft Stream Autogenerate captions for videos

A monitor with the Immersive Reader feature turned on.

Stay focused while reading

Sustain attention with Learning Tools settings such as Immersive Reader that let you have words read aloud with simultaneous highlighting. You can also reduce focus to a few lines, adjust page colors, and increase spacing between lines, letters, and words.

Try Learning Tools in Office 365

A person typing on a laptop with an Outlook calendar open.

Work using everyday language

Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications without having to remember their exact name or location in the ribbon. You can use Tell Me to assist with formatting, discover the difficult-to-find capabilities, and even get scoped help in Office 365 using everyday language.

Type what you want in Tell Me

A woman types on a device while a man next to her looks and holds a smartphone.

Never lose your work

Easily store and access your files from all your devices with OneDrive and Office 365. Have edits to your Office files automatically saved as you are working. Quickly find files, photos, and documents from personalized search results powered by the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph.

Keep your Office files in OneDrive

Go paperless with Office Lens

Office Lens helps you transform text on a printed page into searchable and editable digital content. It includes the ability to have captured content exported to Office 365 applications, and on iOS devices—read aloud with Immersive Reader.

Explore Office Lens accessibility

Improve comprehension and reading

Read more effectively with Learning Tools that read text out loud, break words into syllables, and identify parts of speech. Sustain attention with a focus mode and adjustable spacing between lines, letters, and words. Available for OneNote, Word, and Outlook on various devices.

Try Learning Tools in Office 365

A woman sits, looking at a device and holding a digital pen.

Improve writing quality

With Editor, see any misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and writing style issues as you type in Word and Outlook for PCs. Get suggestions for phonetic misspellings, see synonyms alongside suggestions, and have suggestions read out loud to avoid common word choice errors.

Discover Editor in Office 365

A woman wears a headset and works on a laptop.

Type with your voice

Convert your speech to text with Dictate in Office 365 applications such as Word, PowerPoint and Outlook for PCs. Also available with the Dictate add-in for Word, Outlook and PowerPoint for PCs which supports dictation in 20+ languages and real-time translation to 60+ languages.

Explore Dictate in Office 365

Go paperless with Office Lens

Office Lens helps you transform text on a printed page into searchable and editable digital content. It includes the ability to have captured content exported to Office applications, and on iOS devices—read aloud with Immersive Reader.

Explore Office Lens accessibility

Type with your voice

Explore Dictate in Office 365

A monitor displaying text about keyboard shortcuts and dictation.

Work with keyboard-only

Office 365 is designed to work seamlessly with keyboards. Shortcuts are documented per application to help you get started. Additionally, Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications by typing what you want to do using everyday language.

Find keyboard shortcuts per app Type what you want in Tell Me

Create polished content efficiently

Intelligence is infused in Office 365 to help you do more in fewer steps. Get automated design recommendations in seconds after you add an image in PowerPoint with Designer. Get started quickly with access to reliable sources and citable content without leaving Word with Researcher.

Discover Designer in PowerPoint Explore, add, cite with Researcher

A man who has a social disability sits alone and works on a laptop.

Stay on top to your to-dos

OneNote and Outlook work together to help you stay organized. As you take notes and plan projects in OneNote, you can manage deadlines and remember the things on your to-do list by creating Outlook tasks. Then you can view and track those tasks in Outlook and even get reminders.

Create Outlook tasks in OneNote

A man and a woman work together with several laptops in front of them.

Pick your preferred theme

Change the look and feel of Office 365 applications on PCs by changing the Office Theme. In Office 2016 you can choose from Colorful, Black, Dark Gray, and White themes.

Personalize the look of Office

A woman, who has a cognitive disability, wears headphones and works on a laptop.

Build better work habits

MyAnalytics summarizes how you spend your time at work, then suggests ways to work smarter—from cutting unproductive meeting time to getting better work/life balance. MyAnalytics is included with Office 365 Enterprise E5 and is also available as an add-on with select plans.

Get started with MyAnalytics

Promote digital inclusion with Office 365

With a digital transformation solution that is accessible by design, accelerate your journey toward a more productive, inclusive, and compliant workplace.

A man who has low vision looks closely at a screen to read large text.

Boost productivity

Office 365 seamlessly integrates with assistive technologies and accessibility settings on most devices. Additionally, some Office 365 applications offer built-in Ease of Access settings and Learning Tools to enhance reading and writing experiences for people of all abilities.

Setup accessibility per app

A man who uses a wheelchair talks to a colleague at an office.

Collaborate inclusively

Accessibility Checkers, Accessible Templates, autogenerated Alt-Text for images and captions for audio are available with Office 365 to make it easier for everyone to make their emails, documents, presentations, and meetings more inclusive.

Make your content accessible

A man and a woman look at a laptop during a meeting with another woman.

Achieve compliance

Office 365 applications are designed with the requirements of EN 301 549, WCAG 2.0 AA and US Section 508 in mind. External suppliers under the U.S. Department of Homeland Services Trusted Tester Program help verify Office 365 conformance to accessibility standards.

Learn how products are tested