Accessible publishing

Welcome to the Accessible publishing pages. We provide accessibility advice, guidance and best practice for publishers to help you to deliver accessible publications.

Whether you are the MD of a publishing house, work in production or digital departments, or support the publishing industry, you will find relevant information here to inform and support your work.

Why publish accessibly?

Find out about the commercial, ethical and legal reasons for implementing accessibility into your publishing strategy and the many benefits to be gained from doing so.

How to publish accessibly - guidance

Find out how to build accessibility into digital workflows and how to create accessible eBooks and digital formats.

WIPO's Enabling Technologies Framework Project, run by EDItEUR and the DAISY Consortium , has developed best practice guidelines for publishers to follow in their production process. Integrating existing standards (including ONIX, ePub and DAISY) into mainstream publishing in ways that enhance accessible publishing.

Contact Sarah Hilderley at EDItEUR for more information.

New research

New research into the availability of accessible publications has now been completed for RNIB in two research reports.

The executive summary of the two reports findings is now available:

The full report for the Accessibility of top 1,000 titles of 2010 is available:

The full report for Accessible publications 2011 report is available:

Ways of reading

Learn about the different ways blind and partially sighted people read electronic information. This will illustrate how the files and formats you create can affect the reading experience for people with sight problems and other print impairments.

Further resources

There are many sources of guidance and best practice on accessible publishing available to you from organisations like the Publishers Association, JISC TechDis, EDItEUR, WIPO and many others.

Feedback

Has this guidance been useful to you? How has it helped?

Do you require further information or more detail?

To give us feedback on existing guidance or to request more information on any aspect of accessible publishing, email publisheradvice@rnib.org.uk or phone 020 7391 2150.

Last updated: 29 November 2011

Make a donation

Right now we can only reach one in three of the people who need our help most.

Please make a donation and help us support more blind and partially sighted people.