Re: [WebAIM] MS Word Document and PDF Darkmode

Hey, Miriam,

to have document compatible with "dark-mode" I would stay away from
playing with backgrounds and text colors in Word to cater to the dark-
mode specifically (though you definitely can use colors when creating
your document). Also, outlining text is IMHO the worst approach of all.

Adobe Acrobat has simple accessibility setting allowing replacing
document colors - the default setting is white text on black background,
but user can tweak this according to his needs. 

It indeed does not change the color of graphical elements, however you
can mitigate almost all of the problems with this:
 *  use background colors for any elements that have text over them that
    provide sufficient contrast in both cases - if the text is black or
    white
 *  as much as possible use vector graphics elements, Adobe can change
    color of these according to your accessibility preferences (the
    checkbox is labeled "Change the color of line art as well as text")

While researching the answer I also stumbled upon the fact, that Adobe
Color has recently released Accessibility Tools
<https://color.adobe.com/create/color-accessibility> in their website,
allowing the creation of "color-blind" safe color-pallets with ease in a
tool that designers are familiar with. 

Hope it helped,

Milan


On April 18, 2023, Miriam Fukushima <fukushima@glamus.de> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>  
>  I was wondering if there are any ressources on how to create
> documents in MS Word or and also export them as PDFs so that when
> users have dark mode enabled, the documents and PDFs are still easily
> readable.
>  
>  As far as I understand, MS Word just switches background color and
> Text, so you should use the MS Word formatting tools to make sure MS
> Word can change the colors.
>  But are there any guidelines on what to do or not to do when creating
> documents or which settings to set?
>  Or are there any ressources on what is changed into what or by which
> criteria? 
>  
>  What about text on graphical background? A lot of company designs
> have their own backgrounds, headers and footers.
>  If I have text in front of a more complex background, then that is
> probably not changed but the text will be, so it becomes very likely
> unreadable.
>  But if I integrate the text into the graphic, to make sure it stays
> readable, then it's not accessible as text anymore.
>  Or is it a solution to outline text? But I could imagine some
> customers being highly opposed to that look.
>  
>  Are there any settings to set when exporting to PDF or any guidelines
> or best practices on how to create PDFs for light and dark mode?
>  
>  If not, do you have any experiences with this topic and found best
> practices for yourself?
>  
>  Thank you so much for the help!
>  
>  Kind regards, Miriam
>  
>  
>


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