Text boxes float on top of text on the page and there is no easy way to cursor into them. They present a number of difficulties for users working with text to speech or screen readers.

• It is not obvious where text boxes fit into the reading order on the page
• Screen reader users will not hear the contents of text boxes as they listen to the contents of a page – they have to remember to look for them.
• The “Select all” command does not select text in text boxes, so it is not as easy for users to change font style and size.

PowerPoint slides which contain text boxes present similar difficulties for assistive technology users who will struggle to identify that the boxes are there.

To explore some of these issues further examine the following Word document:

Techniques

Office 2007

• Use text wrapping to flow text around pictures.
• Use borders to draw a box around text.
• Use tables to layout tabular content