software tools To help content creators and web developers create, validate and retrofit web content to comply with the accessibility guidelines, NC State has licensed a number of software tools that are available for download. Below is a list of free and university licensed software.
Authoring and Editing Software
Authoring Software and tools can be used to create and edit accessible web content.
- Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, MX 2004 and 8 has a comprehensive set of features to help create, edit and maintaining accessible web sites. These features are available by default and can be configured via the preference menu. At NC State, many departments have licenses for Dreamweaver and it is available in different labs via the application launcher.
- Course Genie by HorzonWimba lets you create accessible course content from within MS Word. This software is available in the unity labs via the NAL and is available for download.
- MathType by DesignScience is an equation editor, which can create MathML documents from within MS Word. The software is also available in the unity labs via the NAL and is available for download
- S5 by Eric Meyer is a standards-based solution that uses CSS, JavaScripts and XHTML to create a web presentations. In absence of CSS and or JavaScripts, XHTML file degrades gracefully into a single page. S5 consist of is a set of XHTML templates, style sheets and JavaScripts and can be integrated into any authoring tool to create the slides.
Validation and Repair Tools
Validation tools are discussed on the Tools for validation and repair page. NC State has licensed two commercial products to help web developers monitor, validate and retrofit their web content against Section 508 and W3C Web Accessibility Standards.
- Lift, suite of tools from Usablenet. Lift Desktop Solution is installed as an extension of Macromedia DreamWeaver or Microsoft FrontPage to help evaluate, monitor and retrofit web pages from within the authoring tool. LIFT Machine is a server based product from that scans both static and dynamic web sites for accessibility and usability issues and generates detailed reports. Lift Assistive is a server-based tool that dynamically parses the content of a web page into a "Text Only" page, eliminating the need to maintain dual pages.
- AccVerify /Repair, desktop tool from HiSoftware , also helps evaluate and retrofit web content and generate reports.
Transformers and Converters
These tools let you convert different documents into accessible formats.
- LecShare is a tool from LecShare Inc that can help you transform PowerPoint slides into an accessible web presentation. NC State has a site license for LecShare that creates an accessible HTML presentation. This software is also available in the unity labs via the NAL and is available for download. LecShare Pro lets you transform the PowerPoint slides into Quicktime movies and is available for purchase at 70% of list price.
- Web Accessibility Wizard is a commercial tool from University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign that lets you publish Microsoft Office documents into accessible and standards compliant web documents
- Lift Assistive is a server-based tool from Usablenet that dynamically parses the content of a web page into a “Text Only” page, eliminating the need to maintain dual pages.
Captioning Tools
- Media Access Generator (MAGpie) is a free tool developed by CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media for creating captions and audio descriptions for rich media.
- HiCaption, a captioning tool is a component of AccVerify that must be installed separately.
