Accessible slides with the Check view

A deck is often shared after the talk. People who use screen readers, zoom or high contrast read it on their own — and many common problems are easy to fix while you write.

Open the check

Press the Check view on the left (or the key 3). At the top you see either No accessibility errors or the number of errors, followed by warnings and notes. The button of the view shows how many problems there are.

Read the findings

Every finding has a severity, a sentence that explains the fix and the WCAG criterion. Go to slide jumps to the slide in the editor.

The most common findings:

• Slide has no title — start the slide with ## Title. Screen reader users jump from slide to slide by title.
• Same title on several slides — add a word: “Results (Q3)”, “Results (Q4)”.
• Alternative text looks like a file name — describe what the image shows instead of photo.jpg.
• Link text does not say where it goes — write [the 2026 budget](https://…) instead of [here](https://…).
• Deck does not state its language — add lang: en (or de, ar, …) to the front matter.
• Text does not fit — Deckwright shrinks long slides down to 14 pt; beyond that, split the slide.

Contrast and reading order

The table Theme contrast (WCAG 2.2) lists every colour pair of the theme with its measured ratio. All built-in themes pass; the table is there so you can show it in an audit.

Reading order per slide lists the order in which a screen reader meets the content: title first, then the blocks in the order of your Markdown. PDF, HTML and PowerPoint all use this order, so if you want the chart read before the bullets, put it first in the text.

What the check cannot do

It cannot tell whether a description is accurate, whether a chart is easy to understand or whether your language is plain. Read your descriptions once more and, if you can, ask someone who uses a screen reader.

The same check is available as a tool for decks written elsewhere: the Slide Deck Accessibility Checker.