Website Documents

Documents on the SCSU Website

While most documents can be made accessible, it is often harder to make PDFs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files accessible. These documents require extra effort, special consideration, and attention to detail to be accessible. This can be time consuming, resource intensive, and a wasteful process.

Barriers of documents and PDFs:

• Difficult for screen readers to navigate
• Barriers for users on mobile devices, and are
• Harder to update and maintain
• Not every public user has access to Microsoft Office

Whenever possible, content should be presented directly on the webpage using HTML, which provides a more accessible, user-friendly, and flexible experience for all audiences. Limiting the use of documents helps ensure your content is easier to find, read, and use—both now and over time.

Stop here! If the information or form can be a web page, it should. Contact the Web Team for guidance on an HTML-based solution before creating and submitting a document or PDF.

Workflow Protections

All documents and PDFs submitted to the St. Cloud State website are reviewed for accessibility during workflow. Items that do not meet standards will be returned for correction. Document owners are responsible for ensuring full accessibility before resubmission.