An Accessible EPUB Straight Out Of Word, You Say?

/in /by
Diagram of a workflow using icons and software logos to represent the various stages of the stages

Is that even possible? Yes! With the simple, but powerful tool WordToEPUB, you can create EPUB publications directly from Word. Marianne Gulstad explains how straightforward this process can be.

How?

First you style your text with Word’s Styles, and run the Word Accessibility Checker tool, add a cover and basic metadata, then choose OK and … HELLO Accessible EPUB publication! Follow up with the usual checkers, EPUBCheck and Ace, and do some visual checking with your favorite reading systems to see that everything is working as expected. That’s it!

WordToEPUB creates accessible ebooks

Price?

WordToEPUB is free, but you will need MS Word (Win) to run.

Pros at the Input Stage

Authors may already be familiar with MS Word for text editing (low learning curve). Word can be included in workflows with Apple Pages, Google Docs or LibreOffice (improving their code), or used with InDesign in a template flow to output print books and ebooks. If the text is formatted early in the process (e.g. in Word) with accessibility in mind, it will result in time saved at the design stage later on in the production workflow.

Resulting in High Quality Ebook Files at the Output Stage

The final output is an EPUB 3 reflowable file which can be read in all apps and on all platforms. The text can be adjusted to the needs of the users, like changing the font and text size, layout and colors. And the best of it all; the ebook will comply with future accessibility requirements. Screen readers and assistive technologies will be able to read the text out loud. How about that!

WordToEPUB is for new and advanced ebook designers

Mark Up Requirements

You must mark up all text correctly in order for the ebook to become accessible. Luckily, there’s lots of guidance for free (thanks to the DAISY Consortium!) so you can start right now.

Guides

Learn how to make accessible EPUB publications with WordToEPUB:

Download

  • Download & installation
  • System requirements: MS Windows version 7, 8 og 10, Word 2010 or newer (in the future they may provide versions for macOS, mobile and in the cloud)

This article was written by Marianne Gulstad. Marianne is the EPUB QA Officer at Publizon A/S, a key distributor of digital publications in Denmark.