Creating Accessible Excel Spreadsheets
Why Accessible Excel Matters
Excel is widely used across government and the public sector to present data, insight, and operational information. Because spreadsheets are digital documents, they must meet accessibility standards. When Excel workbooks are inaccessible, screen reader users, magnifier users, voice‑control users and colleagues with cognitive impairments lose access to essential information.
This page summarises the essential accessibility principles for Excel and provides 15 practical tips you can apply to every workbook.
Top 15 Tips for Accessible Excel Spreadsheets
- Use a minimum font size of 12pt at 100% zoom
- Use accessible fonts — Arial, Aptos (preferred), Calibri, Verdana, Tahoma and other recommended fonts improve readability.
- Left‑align all text — except numbers, which should be right‑aligned.
- Ensure all text fits inside the cell, wrap to text — users should not need to resize rows or columns to read content.
- Never rely on colour alone to convey meaning — especially red/amber/green traffice light colours.
- Format all data tables as tables — borders and shading are not tables and will break screen reader navigation.
- Give every table a unique and descriptive name — essential for navigation and screen reader users.
- You must use Cell A1 to describe the worksheet contents — include the sheet purpose, table names, and table locations.
- Ensure every worksheet has a unique descriptive name — avoid generic names like “Sheet 1” or “Data”.
- Provide an index worksheet if you use more than one workssheet — this is vital for multi‑sheet workbooks.
- Never hide rows or columns inside tables or within any used rows or columns — hidden content breaks navigation.
- Never leave blank rows or columns inside tables — use “No data” instead.
- Try and ensure users only scroll in one direction — either up/down or left/right, not both. Excel does not reflow
- Use descriptive link text — avoid “Click here”, “Link”, or raw URLs.
- Use indentation and alignment to improve clarity — this moves text away from cell borders for readability.
Who Benefits
Accessible Excel workbooks support blind, magnifier, colour‑blind, voice‑control users, dyslexic readers and people with cognitive disabilities. Properly formatted tables, descriptive worksheet names and clear navigation benefit everyone, not just assistive software users.