Microsoft accessibility features
There is no limit to what people can achieve when technology reflects the diversity of all who use it. Read on to find out how people at home, school, and work can achieve more with the built-in accessibility tools and features in Microsoft technologies.
Distinguish colors easily
Boost contrast or get rid of color entirely—whether you have colorblindness, light sensitivity, or a visual preference, with color filters you can customize your screen's color palette.
Get started with color filters
Type what you want to do
Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications without navigating the command ribbon. You can use Tell Me to assist with formatting, discover the difficult-to-find capabilities and even get scoped help in Office 365 using everyday language.
Do things quickly with Tell Me
Experience maps in 3D sound
Microsoft Soundscape is a research project that uses innovative audio-based technology to enable people with blindness or low vision to build a richer awareness of their surroundings, thus becoming more confident navigating new environments.
Learn how Soundscape works
Work with assistive technologies
Office 365 applications work seamlessly with screen readers and keyboards on most devices. Step-by-step guidance is available per application to help you get started.
Use Office 365 with screen readers
Make Windows 10 easier to see
Resize icons, adjust text size and color, customize the mouse cursor, and more—our display and vision settings make it easy to personalize your viewing experience.
See Windows 10 your way
Use your device without a screen
The screen-reading app, Narrator, offers simplified navigation and intelligent image description, making it easy to explore a page without missing a thing on the screen.
Remind all to check accessibility
Office 365 offers a MailTip in Outlook on the web to inform coworkers of your preference for accessible content. This prompt reminds them to run Accessibility Checker before sending an email to you and fix any issues that might make the content difficult for people with disabilities to consume.
Request accessible content
Get a closer look
Enlarge words and images with Magnifier. And with the customized settings you can use it on all or part of the screen—whatever way suits you best.
Get started using Magnifier
Save time with shortcuts
Get the most out of Windows 10 using just your keyboard. With only a few keystrokes, you can quickly navigate Windows and enable accessibility settings.
Get started with shortcuts
Know where you are
Make your mouse as big or small as you want or make it black if that's best for you. Windows 10 offers many ways to customize your mouse and cursor size.
Find cursor and pointer adjustments
See every detail
Increase the color contrast of text and images on your screen, making them easier to identify. Each high contrast theme can be customized to suit your needs and tastes.
Explore high contrast themes
Hear descriptive audio everywhere
Seeing AI brings together the power of the cloud and AI to deliver an intelligent app that helps you navigate your day with the help of narration describing people, text, and objects.
Discover seeing AI narration
Sign in without a password
With just a look or touch, you can quickly sign in to your Windows device using facial recognition or a fingerprint—no password needed. Commonly used accessibility settings are also available from the sign-in screen.
Set up Windows Hello
Present with real-time subtitles
Display auto-generated subtitles on a presentation in any of 60+ supported languages with the Presentation Translator add-in for PowerPoint on PCs. Plus, let each audience member follow along with captions displayed in their chosen language on any device with Microsoft Translator.
Autogenerate captions for videos
Share videos securely across your organization in an accessible format with Microsoft Stream. Select a simple option, and you’ll get captions and searchable transcripts in English and Spanish autogenerated while uploading videos.
Don't miss a beat
If you have partial hearing loss or deafness in one ear, Windows 10 helps you to hear more from your computer. Just turn on mono audio, and your left and right speakers will play the same sounds.
Configure mono audio
Add captions for videos
Create multimedia presentations that are engaging and accessible with Office 365 applications such as PowerPoint and Sway that enable you to add captions for embedded videos.
Read and enjoy
Use closed captions to read the words that are spoken in movies and television shows. And with Windows 10, you can adjust the color, size, and background transparency to fit your specific needs.
Customize closed caption settings
Don't miss a notification
Adjust notifications to make them appear on your screen longer. If you have difficulty seeing or hearing—or just prefer a longer alert—you can increase the alert display time up to five minutes.
Get longer alerts
Take a visual cue
If you prefer visual notifications over sounds, the Ease of Access Center offers text or visual alternatives.
Set up notifications
Work using everyday language
Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications without having to remember their exact name or location in the ribbon. You can use Tell Me to assist with formatting, discover the difficult-to-find capabilities, and even get scoped help in Office 365 using everyday language.
Type what you want in Tell Me
Get in the zone
Focus assist blocks alerts and notifications, so you can get things done without distractions. Don’t worry, if there are some people you don’t want to ignore, you can add them to a special list. And when you finish focusing, you'll get a summary of what you missed.
Learn more about focus assist
Improve reading comprehension
Use Reading view to clear distracting content from web pages, so you can stay focused on what you want to read. And with Learning Tools in Microsoft Edge you can have documents read aloud to you.
Type with confidence
Get help constructing sentences with text suggestions. Word suggestions appear, and can be inserted, as you type. It's a great feature for English language learners—and anyone who would like a little help with their writing.
Turn on text suggestions
Dial down the distractions
Windows 10 makes it easy to minimize distractions by reducing animations and turning off background images. You can also clean up taskbar clutter, simplify the start menu, and quiet notifications.
Learn how to minimize distractions
Organized efficiency
Change your taskbar location, rearrange buttons, and unlock other settings to make your taskbar best suit your needs. You can also pin and group your favorite apps or unpin what you don't need. Simply drag and drop apps from the app list and pin them to the start menu as tiles.
Read with friendlier fonts
Fluent Sitka Small and Fluent Calibri are fonts that reduce visual crowding and make reading easier for people with dyslexia.
Download fluent fonts for easier reading
Stay focused while reading
Sustain attention with Learning Tools settings such as Immersive Reader that let you have words read aloud with simultaneous highlighting. You can also reduce focus to a few lines, adjust page colors, and increase spacing between lines, letters, and words.
Try Learning Tools in Office 365
Never lose your work
Easily store and access your files from all your devices with OneDrive and Office 365. Have edits to your Office files automatically saved as you are working. Quickly find files, photos, and documents from personalized search results powered by the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph.
Keep your Office files in OneDrive
Go paperless with Office Lens
Office Lens helps you transform text on a printed page into searchable and editable digital content. It includes the ability to have captured content exported to Office 365 applications, and on iOS devices—read aloud with Immersive Reader.
Explore Office Lens accessibility
Get writing assistance
Editor provides advanced proofing and editing service. Using machine learning and natural language processing, mixed with input from our own team of linguists, Editor makes suggestions to help you improve your writing.
Learn about Editor
Research and cite sources
Researcher helps you find and incorporate reliable sources and content. Search the internet within your Word document, explore material related to your topic, and add it with its properly-formatted citation—all in one action.
Find out more about Researcher
Enhance your slides
PowerPoint Designer improves your slides by automatically generating design ideas that you can choose from. While you're putting content on a slide, Designer works in the background to match that content to professionally designed layouts.
Try PowerPoint Designer
Automatically display subtitles
As you speak, the add-in powered by the Microsoft Translator live feature allows you to display subtitles directly on your PowerPoint presentation in any one of more than 60 supported text languages.
Visit the Microsoft Translator site
Improve comprehension and reading
Read more effectively with Learning Tools that read text out loud, break words into syllables, and identify parts of speech. Sustain attention with a focus mode and adjustable spacing between lines, letters, and words. Available for OneNote, Word, and Outlook on various devices.
Try Learning Tools in Office 365
Improve writing quality
With Editor, see any misspellings, grammatical mistakes, and writing style issues as you type in Word and Outlook for PCs. Get suggestions for phonetic misspellings, see synonyms alongside suggestions, and have suggestions read out loud to avoid common word choice errors.
Discover Editor in Office 365
Type with confidence
Get help constructing sentences with text suggestions. Word suggestions appear, and can be inserted, as you type. It's a great feature for English language learners—and anyone who'd like a little help with their writing.
Turn on text suggestions
Type with your voice
Convert your speech to text with Dictate in Office 365 applications such as Word, PowerPoint and Outlook for PCs. Also available with the Dictate add-in for Word, Outlook and PowerPoint for PCs which supports dictation in 20+ languages and real-time translation to 60+ languages.
Explore Dictate in Office 365
Improve reading comprehension
Use Reading view to clear distracting content from web pages, so you can stay focused. And with Learning Tools in Microsoft Edge you can have documents read aloud to you.
Get in the zone
Focus assist blocks alerts and notifications, so you can get things done without distractions. Don’t worry, if there are some people you don’t want to ignore, you can add them to a special list. And when you’ve finish focusing, you'll get a summary of what you missed.
Learn more about focus assist
Type without a keyboard
The On-Screen Keyboard (OSK) allows you to type using a mouse or other pointing device, like a trackball or joystick. Word completion and word prediction also help you choose the best next word if you have a learning disability or cognitive impairment.
Try the on-screen keyboard
Use your device without a screen
The Windows 10 screen-reading app, Narrator, helps you navigate with confidence. With features like simplified navigation and intelligent image description, you won’t be missing anything on the screen.
Take a closer look
Magnifier lets you enlarge your screen so you can see words and images better. With a few different customization settings, you can use Magnifier on all or part of the screen, in whatever way suits you best.
Get started using Magnifier
Unlock limitless learning
Windows 10 helps students and educators do great things.
Learn about Windows for Education
Type with your voice
Convert your speech to text with Dictate in Office 365 applications such as Word, PowerPoint and Outlook for PCs. Also available with the Dictate add-in for Word, Outlook and PowerPoint for PCs which supports dictation in 20+ languages and real-time translation to 60+ languages.
Work with keyboard-only
Office 365 is designed to work seamlessly with keyboards. Shortcuts are documented per application to help you get started. Additionally, Tell Me lets you quickly access commands in several Office 365 applications by typing what you want to do using everyday language.
Click with your eyes
If physical disabilities make it difficult to use a keyboard, Windows 10 offers built-in support for eye control—an effective way to use your PC with just your eyes, (eye tracking hardware sold separately).
Get started with eye control
Create polished content efficiently
Intelligence is infused in Office 365 to help you do more in fewer steps. Get automated design recommendations in seconds after you add an image in PowerPoint with Designer. Get started quickly with access to reliable sources and citable content without leaving Word with Researcher.
Type without a keyboard
The On-Screen Keyboard (OSK) allows you to type with a pointing device, such as a mouse, trackball or joystick. And for those with mobility limitations, learning disabilities, or cognitive impairment, the word completion and word prediction tools can be helpful.
Get started with the on-screen keyboard
Log in simply and securely
Accessibility settings such as Sticky Keys and Filter Keys are available on the screen where you sign in to your computer. And with Windows Hello you can quickly and securely sign in with just a look or touch (requires specialized hardware).
Easier to use mouse and keyboard
Windows 10 gives you a number of options for making your mouse and keyboard easier to use. Change the shape and color of the mouse pointer, or use Mouse Keys to move the mouse pointer with the numeric keypad. If you have trouble pressing two keys at the same time, Sticky Keys lets you type commands one key at a time.
Type and navigate with your voice
Whether you're composing a document, an email, or surfing the web, dictation will convert your speech to text—so you can produce words without a keyboard. And with Windows Speech Recognition you can control your PC by voice alone.
Minimize visual distractions
Windows makes it easy to minimize distractions by reducing animations and turning off background images and transparency. You can also clean up taskbar clutter and simplify the start menu.
Start reducing distractions
Get in the zone
Focus assist blocks alerts and notifications, so you can get things done without distractions. Don't worry, if there are some people you don't want to ignore, you can add them to a special list. And when you finish focusing, you'll get a summary of what you missed.
Learn more about focus assist
Stay on top to your to-dos
OneNote and Outlook work together to help you stay organized. As you take notes and plan projects in OneNote, you can manage deadlines and remember the things on your to-do list by creating Outlook tasks. Then you can view and track those tasks in Outlook and even get reminders.
Create Outlook tasks in OneNote
Pick your preferred theme
Change the look and feel of Office 365 applications on PCs by changing the Office Theme. In Office 2016 you can choose from Colorful, Black, Dark Gray, and White themes.
Personalize the look of Office
Build better work habits
MyAnalytics summarizes how you spend your time at work, then suggests ways to work smarter – from cutting unproductive meeting time to getting better work/life balance. MyAnalytics is included with Office 365 Enterprise E5 and is also available as an add-on with select plans.
Get started with MyAnalytics