Making Accessible Presentations with Canva
Today’s post will provide an overview of how to use Canva AI to create a presentation, export it to PDF, and then make it accessible.
Video Guide
Canva, a popular design tool, offers the ability to create presentations. The process starts by selecting a blank presentation and utilizing Canva’s magic Design button. A small window prompts the user to describe the presentation topic.

By selecting a theme around “accessibility section 508 design principles,” Canva provides a choice of styles. The creator can select one that passes color contrast requirements and create the presentation.
The created presentation in the video covers various aspects such as:
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- Introduction to accessibility in Section 508 design principles.
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- The law of Section 508 and its necessity.
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- Principles of design include text alternatives for non-text content, keyboard interface functionality, and effective use of color and contrast.
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- Techniques to ensure accessibility, benefits of designing for accessibility, and the importance of various elements like high contrast colors, alternate text images, descriptive link tags, keyboard navigation, and using headings and lists.
Making a Canva Presentation Accessible with PDF/UA
After creating a presentation in Canva, the file can be downloaded as PDF standard. The accessibility review involves opening the tags panel and addressing the tags within the document. The initial steps may involve:
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- Reordering and labeling content appropriately.
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- Artifacting irrelevant images.
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- Creating headings and lists as needed.
Canva documents are not Accessible!
Accessibility checkers like Adobe’s can be utilized. Any errors identified may require manual adjustments such as creating artifacts, fixing the bounding boxes, or other logical structures. The process may also involve adding the PDF/UA identifier, and the result is a document that meets PDF/UA requirements and passes WCAG 2.1.
This comprehensive guide demonstrates how to create an AI-based presentation in Canva and make it accessible, embodying the principles of inclusivity and design thinking.
Let me be your champion for inclusion. I offer tailored solutions (and self-paced courses!) to ensure your documents meet and exceed compliance expectations. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel: The Accessibility Guy on YouTube. Subscribe for regular updates!
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[…] up your Canva presentation. Once you have it set up, look for the Canva assistant button located in the bottom right corner. […]
[…] AI feature, we create a presentation on the importance of digital accessibility. Despite the convenience of Canva’s design tools, we encounter challenges upon exporting the presentation to […]