Microsoft Accessibility Checkers: What They Won't Catch

Summary

The Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office no longer identifies some accessibility issues. This article lists problems it's known to miss, and links to manual checklists for key Microsoft applications.

Body

Summary

Microsoft Accessibility Assistant tools (included in Microsoft Office applications) don't always adequately identify accessibility problems. This document provides a list of items known to fail. See related manual review checklists for Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. 

What Accessibility Assistant Will Catch

Word

  • Successfully identifies color contrast issues and facilitates corrections
  • Usually provides a checklist of images that identifies missing alt text and facilitating manual review of alt text quality.
  • Document Access is simply a status indicator; it is successfully assessed, but its value has no bearing on accessibility.

PowerPoint

  • Accurately identifies images with missing alt text.
  • Flags pages for reading-order review if objects have been added.
  • Flags duplicate page or section names.
  • Appears to complete most checks successfully.

Excel

  • Successfully identifies color contrast issues and facilitates corrections
  • Usually provides a checklist of images that identifies missing alt text and facilitating manual review of alt text quality.
  • Checks existing table structures for presence of a header row. (Note that it would be difficult to make an Excel table that did not have a header row.)

What It May Not Catch

Word

  • Fails to recognize any issues with tables.
  • Fails to recognize any issues with document structure.
  • Sometimes fails to recognize newly-inserted images. You should manually review any new images you insert

PowerPoint

  • Reading order and alt-text checkpoints can be cleared accidentally. You should double-check manually.
  • Cannot verify that reading order is as-intended. You should review the reading order on every page.
  • Cannot assess quality of alt text for images or charts.
  • May not accurately identify contrast failures.
  • May not accurately identify merged table cells.
  • May not accurately identify missing table headers.

Excel

  • Most issues critical for Excel accessibility are not checked by the Accessibility Assistant.

Details

Details

Article ID: 9102
Created
Fri 6/5/26 3:09 PM
Modified
Mon 7/13/26 8:58 AM

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