Common File Types

Common File Types

Panorama reviews files in a course and identifies issues. Here's how Panorama measures the accessibility of the most common file types.

Word Document (.doc, .docx)
When a Word document is uploaded, Panorama automatically analyzes it for issues including missing or improper heading structure, missing alternative text on images, and contrast between text and background. Panorama's inline Remediation Engine can fix many of these issues directly within Brightspace without requiring the instructor to re-upload the file.

PowerPoint Presentation (.ppt, .pptx)
Panorama checks PowerPoint files against WCAG criteria. The PowerPoint Remediation Engine enables users to address WCAG 2.1 compliance issues directly within the LMS, including issues such as contrast, font size adjustments, and alternative text for images. Notably, reading order issues on PowerPoint slides must be corrected within PowerPoint itself and cannot be fixed inside the LMS — the file must then be re-uploaded.

Excel Spreadsheet (.xls, .xlsx)
Excel is a supported file type for both scanning and remediation. The WCAG 2.2-aligned Remediation Engine for Excel was extended to resolve issues such as those related to structure and accessibility compliance directly inside Accessibility Reports.

Portable Document Format (.pdf)
PDFs receive some of the most robust treatment in Panorama. The PDF Remediation Engine Pro remediates issues across a wide set of accessibility concerns within PDF documents. Panorama looks for unreadable or untagged PDFs as a core part of its PDF analysis, since tagging is foundational to screen reader compatibility.

Web Page Files (.html)
HTML content areas (like Brightspace pages built in the WYSIWYG editor) receive their own accessibility score. Accessibility score icons appear at the top of HTML content rather than beside a file. Checks for HTML include alternative text for images, flagging adjacent links with the same URL, flagging tables with no content, and scanning linked Vimeo videos to ensure they contain captions. Panorama's Accessibility Report has been updated to detect WCAG 2.2-aligned issues for HTML content as well.

Images (.jpg, .png, .gif)
Panorama generates accessibility scores for GIF files and images more broadly. For JPG and PNG files embedded within course content or documents, Panorama checks for the presence and quality of alternative text. OCR formats are available to convert images with text into machine-encoded text that can be searched and read by screen readers. Panorama's checklist explicitly covers GIF as a standalone scored file type, but the accessibility of JPG and PNG files is evaluated primarily in the context of the document or web page they appear within.