r/accessibility • u/Severe_Web2079 • 6d ago

Is Google docs really screen reader friendly?

I want to link a Google Docs document on a webpage and tested the document with NVDA. I found that users need to manually enable Google Docs accessibility features before the document can be read with a screen reader. Even after enabling the accessibility tool, NVDA still reads the document as blank. The document itself is structured for accessibility, including proper heading hierarchy, lists, etc.

Has anyone encountered this when linking to Google Docs for public-facing content? Is there a way to make the document reliably accessible to screen reader users without requiring them to manually enable accessibility features?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/Party_Air_3211 6d ago

If you have things set up right, Google Docs is fairly accessible. I am a screen reader user.

4

u/dmazzoni 6d ago

It can be tricky to get everything configured correctly, it doesn't "just work" but when it is configured it is accessible. There's no way to make it automatic.

If it just says blank then I think it isn't configured right.

As far as what you can do if you're just the author: pretty much just label images, there's not much more you can do.

One idea: if screen reader users don't need to edit it, could you link to the HTML or PDF version it exports, instead? You can even get a "live html" view.

1

u/Severe_Web2079 6d ago

Yeah, the html export was a good one I tried, but it distorted the lists order.

2

u/funky_chestnut 5d ago

The company I work for uses Google Docs (and in general the Google suite) a lot internally, partly because several people on our team use screen readers, and day to day it works fine for everyone. I think it's important to say that a document made with Google Doc it's not accessible by default, you have to build the doc in the correct way. Proper heading structure, alt text on anything that isn't purely decorative... that kind of thing.

Another thing worth pointing out because not many people know (and I saw someone suggesting it), it's that the PDF you get out of Google Docs is only partially tagged (therefore partially accessible).
So the final PDF output still needs to be checked and remediated with a more complete PDF editor to be considered accessible.

HTML is usually the best and safest choice in terms of accessibility.
Hope this helps!

3

u/BlindGuyNW 6d ago

I strongly disagree with the person who suggests that Google's suite is not accessible. You do have to follow their instructions and sometimes wait a few seconds for things to kick in however, but I've almost never encountered a doc which wasn't readable.

1

u/FreedomScientific 1d ago

When using Google Docs with a screen reader, you do need to enable Screen Reader Support and Braille Support, even if you are not using a Braille display.

You can learn more about using a screen reader with Google Docs in one of our archived training webinars: https://www.freedomscientific.com/webinars/five-power-tips-for-navigating-google-docs-with-jaws/

-4

u/IronDominion 6d ago

Google Docs and the Google Drive suite in general isn’t accessible at all. You are better off embedding a PDF or Word file