Table of Contents
- Overview
- Installation
- Interface Overview
- Uploading & Patching a File
- Reading the Results
- History
- What Gets Fixed — By File Type
- Why PDFs Need Acrobat Pro
- Accessibility Standards Reference
- FAQ
- Topbar & Navigation
- Accessibility Features
1. Overview
Holon Patch automatically applies Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 accessibility fixes to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV, and PDF documents — directly inside Canvas.
Instructors and course designers often create documents before thinking about accessibility. Holon Patch acts as a first-pass remediation engine: upload a file, receive a patched version with all automatable fixes applied, and a clear report distinguishing what was fixed from what still needs manual review.
Holon Patch is based on the AED COP (Accessible Electronic Document Community of Practice) Section 508 authoring and testing guides for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF.
Supported File Types
| Format | Extension | Notes |
|---|
| Word Document | .docx | Fully supported |
| PowerPoint | .pptx | Fully supported |
| Excel Workbook | .xlsx | Fully supported |
| CSV | .csv | Auto-converted to .xlsx for patching |
| PDF | .pdf | Metadata fixes only — see Section 8 |
| Legacy formats | .doc / .ppt / .xls | Not supported — convert to modern format first |
Maximum file size: 50MB
2. Installation
Holon Patch is installed as a Canvas LTI 1.1 tool. Your institution's Canvas administrator can install it account-wide, or individual instructors can install it at the course level.
Course-Level Install
1
In Canvas, open your course and go to Settings → Apps.
2
Click + App and choose By URL as the configuration type.
3
Enter your credentials from your Holon account at
store.holontechnology.com/portal:
- Consumer Key: holon-patch
- Shared Secret: (from your portal)
- Config URL: https://patch.holontechnology.com/lti/config.xml
4
Click Submit. Holon Patch will appear in your course left navigation.
3. Interface Overview
Topbar
The topbar contains the Holon Patch logo pill, your Canvas username, ADA font-size controls (A / A+ / A++), the 🎨 theme editor, a Help button, and the ⚙ settings cog.
Sidebar
Three navigation items:
- Upload & Fix — the main upload interface
- History — your recent patch jobs with re-download links
- What Gets Fixed — a full reference of every check performed per file type
4. Uploading & Patching a File
Upload → patch → download. The whole workflow takes under 30 seconds for most documents.
1
Go to Upload & Fix. The drop zone is the large dashed area in the centre of the screen.
2
Drop your file onto the zone, or click it to open a file browser. Only the supported types above are accepted.
3
Wait. A progress bar animates while the file is uploaded and processed. Most documents complete in 5–20 seconds. Large PDFs may take longer.
4
Download the patched file using the blue download button. The filename will have _accessible appended before the extension (e.g. Syllabus_accessible.docx).
Legacy formats (.doc, .ppt, .xls): These binary formats are not supported. Open the file in the corresponding Microsoft Office application, choose File → Save As, select the modern format (.docx / .pptx / .xlsx), and re-upload.
5. Reading the Results
After processing, two lists appear beneath the download button:
✓ FIXES APPLIED
These changes were made automatically to the patched file. Each fix includes a brief explanation of the accessibility rule it addresses.
⚠ NOTES
These are issues that Holon Patch detected but cannot fix automatically — they require human judgment. Each note includes a description of the problem and guidance on how to address it manually.
Common manual items include: reading order in PowerPoint, color-only meaning, ambiguous link text, and complex merged-cell tables.
Both lists matter. The green fixes make the document more accessible, but the amber notes identify issues that could still cause Section 508 failures. Address them before distributing the document.
6. History
The History view shows your 50 most recent patch jobs. Each row displays:
- Original filename
- Date and time processed
- Number of fixes applied
- Job status (Done / Error)
- A re-download link (available for 1 hour after processing)
Files are automatically deleted from the server after 1 hour. Download your patched file promptly, or re-upload the original to generate a new patched version.
7. What Gets Fixed — By File Type
All checks are based on the AED COP Section 508 Basic Authoring and Testing Guides for Word 365, PowerPoint 365, Excel 365, and PDF (Adobe Acrobat DC Pro).
📄 Word Documents (.docx)
Auto-Fixed
✓
Document title — Set in File Properties if empty (Test 1C of AED COP Word guide). Screen readers and assistive technology announce the document title.
✓
Language attribute — Set to en-US on the Normal style (Test 6). Screen readers use the language tag to select the correct pronunciation engine.
✓
Font size below 12pt — Raised to 12pt (Test 13 / WCAG 1.4.4). Standard body text below 12pt is inaccessible to users with low vision.
✓
Low-contrast text — Very light-coloured text (luminance >85%) is darkened to #1a1a1a (Test 13 / WCAG 1.4.3). WCAG requires a 4.5:1 contrast ratio for standard text.
✓
Image alt text — Images with no alt text or title receive a placeholder description (Test 10). Assistive technology cannot convey image content without alt text.
✓
Table header rows — First rows are bolded and marked with the Word "Repeat as header row" flag (Test 9C). Screen readers use this to associate data cells with their column headers.
✓
Table text wrapping — Set to None (Test 5B / 9D). Floating tables interfere with assistive technology reading order.
Flagged for Manual Review
⚠
Heading hierarchy gaps — e.g. H1 → H3, skipping H2 (Test 2B). Screen readers navigate by heading level; skipped levels confuse the document outline.
⚠
Manual list formatting — Dashes, symbols, or numbers typed by hand instead of Word's built-in List styles (Test 3). Screen readers cannot identify manually formatted text as a list.
⚠
Ambiguous link text — Links labelled "click here," "here," or "more" (Test 7). Screen reader users navigating by links cannot determine destination from context-free labels.
⚠
Floating images — Images not inline with text (Test 11). Assistive technology cannot access or edit information in floating objects.
⚠
Merged/split cells — Complex data tables cannot be made accessible in Word (Test 9B). Must be restructured or converted to a remediated PDF.
⚠
Vital info in headers/footers — Assistive technology does not automatically read headers/footers (Test 8). Duplicate any vital information in the document body.
⚠
Color-only meaning — Content that relies on colour alone to convey information (Test 12 / WCAG 1.4.1). Add text descriptions alongside all colour-coded content.
⚠
Document protection — Editing restrictions limit assistive technology access (Test 1D). Remove protection during accessibility testing.
📊 PowerPoint (.pptx)
Auto-Fixed
✓
Presentation title — Set in File Properties if empty (Test 1C).
✓
Text below 18pt — Raised to 18pt. 18pt is the recommended minimum for slide content readability and accessibility.
✓
Low-contrast text — Very light-coloured text darkened (WCAG 1.4.3).
✓
Shape/image alt text — Shapes and images with no description receive a placeholder (Test 10).
Flagged for Manual Review
⚠
Missing slide titles — Slides without a Title placeholder (Test 3). Slide titles are H1-level headings that screen readers use to navigate the presentation. Fix via Review → Check Accessibility → Missing Slide Title.
⚠
Reading order — Objects must be in their intended reading order in the Reading Order pane (Test 2). Verify via Review → Check Accessibility → Reading Order pane.
⚠
Manual list formatting — Use Home → Paragraph → Bullets or Numbering instead of typed dashes/symbols (Test 4).
⚠
Ambiguous link text (Test 7).
⚠
Vital info in Slide Master — Background text in the Slide Master must appear in the Reading Order pane to be read by screen readers (Test 8).
⚠
Color-only meaning (Test 11 / WCAG 1.4.1).
📈 Excel / CSV (.xlsx, .csv)
Auto-Fixed
✓
Workbook title — Set in File Properties if empty (Test 1C).
✓
Font below 11pt — Raised to 11pt (WCAG 1.4.4).
✓
Header row bold — First row bolded on each worksheet (Test 5B). Required so screen readers can identify column headers.
✓
Column widths — Auto-fitted to content. Truncated content is inaccessible.
✓
Wrap text + top-align — Applied to all cells for consistent readability.
✓
CSV conversion — CSV files are converted to .xlsx before patching, enabling all Excel fixes.
Flagged for Manual Review
⚠
Generic worksheet names — "Sheet1," "Sheet2," etc. should be renamed to describe the content (Test 1).
⚠
Generic table names — "Table1" etc. should be renamed in Table Design → Properties → Table Name (Test 5A).
⚠
Merged/split cells — Cannot be made accessible in Excel. Restructure or convert to a remediated PDF (Test 5B).
⚠
Vital info not in cell A1 — Assistive technology reads from A1. Any vital header/footer info must be duplicated in A1 (Test 4).
⚠
Ambiguous link text (Test 3).
⚠
Color-only meaning — e.g. red cells = overdue. Add text alongside colour coding (Test 7 / WCAG 1.4.1).
📑 PDF
Auto-Fixed
✓
Document title — Set in PDF metadata if empty.
✓
Text layer detection — Scanned (image-only) PDFs are identified and flagged for OCR.
8. Why PDFs Need Acrobat Pro for Full Remediation
PDFs store content as visual drawing instructions, not structured data. This makes programmatic accessibility remediation fundamentally different from Word or Excel.
When you save a Word document as a PDF, the resulting file contains drawing instructions — "place glyph X at coordinate Y in colour Z" — rather than the semantic structure of the original Word file. There are no heading styles, no font size fields, no alt text attributes, and no list structures in the PDF itself unless they are explicitly added as an accessibility tag tree.
This tag tree is what Acrobat Pro's Make Accessible wizard builds. It maps the visual content to a logical structure: headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, figures. Without this tag tree, screen readers cannot navigate the document by heading, cannot identify table headers, and cannot read figure descriptions.
Full PDF Remediation Workflow (Acrobat Pro)
1
Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
2
Go to File → Properties → Description. Set the Title and Language fields.
3
Run Tools → Accessibility → Make Accessible. Follow the wizard prompts.
4
Open the Tags panel and review the tag tree. Correct any misidentified headings, paragraphs, tables, or figures.
5
Right-click figures and select Edit Alt Text. Add meaningful descriptions.
6
Use the Reading Order tool (Tools → Accessibility → Reading Order) to verify the logical reading sequence.
7
For complex tables with merged cells, manually tag each header-cell relationship in the Tags panel.
8
Validate with PAC 2024 (free) or CommonLook PDF Validator.
Best practice: Author documents in Word with proper accessibility from the start, then export to PDF. A properly accessible Word document produces a much more accessible PDF than post-hoc remediation.
9. Accessibility Standards Reference
| Standard | Requirement | Holon Patch Check |
|---|
| WCAG 2.1 — 1.1.1 | Non-text content has alt text | Image alt text (all formats) |
| WCAG 2.1 — 1.3.1 | Info and relationships conveyed programmatically | Table headers, list styles, heading styles |
| WCAG 2.1 — 1.4.1 | Color not used as the only visual means | Color-only meaning flag |
| WCAG 2.1 — 1.4.3 | Contrast ratio ≥ 4.5:1 for standard text | Low-contrast text detection and darkening |
| WCAG 2.1 — 1.4.4 | Text can be resized to 200% without loss | Minimum font size enforcement |
| WCAG 2.1 — 2.4.6 | Headings and labels are descriptive | Heading hierarchy gap detection |
| WCAG 2.1 — 2.4.4 | Link purpose determinable from context | Ambiguous link text detection |
| Section 508 — E205 | Electronic content must conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA | All checks above |
| AED COP Word Guide | 16-point checklist for Word 365 accessibility | Tests 1–16 addressed |
| AED COP PPT Guide | 14-point checklist for PowerPoint 365 | Tests 1–14 addressed |
| AED COP Excel Guide | 11-point checklist for Excel 365 | Tests 1–11 addressed |
10. FAQ
Does Holon Patch make my document fully Section 508 compliant?
Holon Patch applies all fixes that can be automated reliably. However, full Section 508 compliance also requires human review — particularly for reading order, color-only meaning, complex table structures, and alt text quality. Use the amber warnings as your manual checklist after downloading the patched file.
Why can't you fix PDFs the same way as Word files?
See Section 8. PDFs store content as drawing instructions, not structured data. The accessibility layer must be built separately by a tool like Acrobat Pro that can infer structure from the visual layout.
My file is .doc / .ppt / .xls — why is it rejected?
These are legacy binary formats from Office 2003 and earlier. The Python libraries used for accessibility patching only support the modern XML-based formats (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx). Open the file in Microsoft Office, choose File → Save As, select the modern format, and re-upload.
The alt text placeholder says "Image — add meaningful alt text." What should I write?
Holon Patch cannot know what an image depicts. Replace the placeholder with a concise, accurate description of the image's purpose and context — typically 1–2 sentences. For decorative images that add no information, use the "Mark as decorative" option in Word or PowerPoint instead.
How long are patched files kept?
Patched files are stored on the server for 1 hour, then automatically deleted. Download your file promptly after processing.
Can I re-upload the same file?
Yes. Each upload creates a fresh patch job. This is useful if you've manually fixed some of the amber warnings and want to re-run to confirm remaining issues.
Does Holon Patch work on mobile?
Yes. The interface is responsive and works within Canvas's mobile app and mobile browser, though file selection may behave differently depending on your device's file picker.
11. Topbar & Navigation
| Element | Description |
|---|
| ● Holon PATCH pill | Brand identifier — links back to the tool home |
| Avatar + username | Your Canvas display name, pulled from the LTI launch |
| A / A+ / A++ | Font size controls — scales the main content area for readability |
| 🎨 Theme button | Opens the colour customisation panel |
| Help | Opens the quick-start help overlay |
| ⚙ Settings cog | Shows your Canvas connection status |
12. Accessibility Features
Holon Patch is designed to be accessible itself:
- Font scaling — A / A+ / A++ buttons scale body text to 14px, 16px, or 18px
- Theme editor — Full colour customisation including sidebar, headers, accent, and background
- Keyboard navigation — All interactive elements are reachable by keyboard
- Screen reader friendly — Semantic HTML with ARIA labels on key controls
- High contrast — Default colour scheme meets WCAG 4.5:1 contrast ratio for all body text