Kayabyte Accessibility Checker
Find and fix accessibility problems in Google Docs™ and Google Slides™, and export Google Docs as tagged PDFs prepared for PDF/UA. Built for schools, universities, public agencies and anyone who publishes documents that must work with screen readers.
Get started
- Open a document or presentation and choose Extensions › Kayabyte Accessibility Checker › Check accessibility.
- Click Check this document. Problems are grouped by kind, errors first. Each one says which WCAG 2.1 success criterion it relates to, or that it is a best practice.
- Click Show to jump to a problem, then use the button next to it to fix it.
- In Google Docs, click Export tagged PDF. The PDF is saved in My Drive.
Automatic checks find many problems, but not all of them. Whether alt text is accurate, whether color alone carries meaning, or whether the reading order makes sense still needs a person. Read the document with a screen reader once before you publish it.
What it checks
| Check | Docs | Slides | WCAG |
|---|---|---|---|
| Images and charts without alt text, or alt text that is a file name, very long or starts with “image of” | ✓ | ✓ | 1.1.1 |
| Drawings and equations, which cannot have alt text in Google Docs | ✓ | 1.1.1 | |
| Videos: a reminder to check captions | ✓ | 1.2.2 | |
| No headings in a long document, skipped heading levels, empty headings, very long headings | ✓ | 1.3.1, 2.4.6 | |
| Text that looks like a heading but is formatted as normal text | ✓ | 1.3.1 | |
| Tables used for layout, empty header cells, merged cells | ✓ | 1.3.1 | |
| Lists typed by hand (•, -, 1.) instead of real lists | ✓ | 1.3.1 | |
| Spaces, tabs or empty lines used for layout | ✓ | Best practice | |
| Link text that is empty, says only “click here”, or is a long web address | ✓ | ✓ | 2.4.4 |
| Text color contrast below 4.5:1 (3:1 for large text) | ✓ | ✓ | 1.4.3 |
| Very small text, underlined text that is not a link, long passages in capitals | ✓ | ✓ | Best practice |
| Slides without a title, duplicate slide titles, title not read first | ✓ | 2.4.6, 1.3.2 | |
| Untitled document or presentation | ✓ | ✓ | 2.4.2 |
| Document language not set | ✓ | 3.1.1 |
Text on a picture, or light text whose background the add-on cannot see, is not judged for contrast: a guess would often be wrong. Where the add-on assumes a white page, it says so.
Fixing
Most problems have a fix button: save alt text, fix heading levels (a skipped heading moves up together with the headings under it), make look-alike text a real heading, change a text color to the nearest one that passes, turn typed lines into a real list, remove extra empty lines, remove an underline, enlarge small text, rename the file, set the language, add a slide title, or make the slide title read first. Every fix checks first that the document has not changed since the check, so it never edits the wrong text. You can undo any fix with Edit › Undo.
With Pro, Fix all shows the kinds of fix it can apply, with counts, and you choose which ones to run. Changes that need judgment, such as removing underlines or turning bold lines into headings, are off unless you tick them.
Tagged PDF (Google Docs)
Google Docs already adds tags to its PDFs. The add-on adds what PDF/UA-1 also needs: the document title and language, metadata, the reading order and descriptions of links, header cells for tables, a correct structure for nested lists, and marks decoration so screen readers skip it. The pages look exactly the same.
If the document still has problems that must be fixed at the source, such as missing alt text or skipped heading levels, the add-on lists them and does not mark the PDF as PDF/UA until they are fixed. We test the output with veraPDF, the reference PDF/UA validator. A person still needs to check, for example, that the alt text describes each image well.
Plans
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| All checks in Docs and Slides | ✓ | ✓ |
| Show each problem, fix them one by one | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fix all, choosing which kinds of fix | ✓ | |
| Tagged PDF exports | 3 a month | Unlimited |
| Price | Free | $6 per user per month, or $60 per user per year, with a 14-day free trial. Whole school, district, university or organization: $990 per year. |
Prices include VAT or sales tax where it applies. The organization plan covers up to 1,000 accounts with an email address on your domain; for larger organizations, invoices or quotes, email support@kayabyte.dev.
Permissions
| Scope | Why |
|---|---|
documents.currentonly |
Check and fix the document in which you open the add-on, and export it as PDF. No other document is opened. |
presentations.currentonly |
Check and fix the presentation in which you open the add-on. |
drive.file |
Save the tagged PDF in your Drive. The add-on can only see files it creates. |
script.container.ui |
Show the sidebar and menu. |
script.external_request,
userinfo.email |
Check your plan with our licence service. Only your email address is sent. |
Checks, fixes and PDF export run inside Google Apps Script. Document content is never sent to Kayabyte or anyone else. See the privacy policy and terms of service.
Support
support@kayabyte.dev, usually within one business day.
Google Docs™, Google Slides™ and Google Drive™ are trademarks of Google LLC. Kayabyte is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google LLC. Using this add-on does not by itself make a document compliant with the ADA, Section 508, EN 301 549, WCAG or PDF/UA; it helps you find and fix the problems that can be detected automatically.