Announcing the Pressbooks Accessibility Authoring Tool

Pressbooks Product Updates Pressbooks Announcements
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@EDU_Managers We’re excited to announce the preview release of Pressbooks’ new Accessibility Authoring Tool, a top-requested capability for Pressbooks users. This simple-to-use add-on tool, powered by Editoria11y, automatically checks page content for common accessibility issues and helps authors make accessible choices as they work.

We’re launching this preview release with a free trial period so that your content creators can try out the tool, explore its capabilities, and share feedback to help us refine it.

Key details

  • To activate the free trial for all users on your Pressbooks Enterprise Network, a Network Manager must opt in.

  • The free trial extends until November 5, 2025.

  • After this trial period, the Pressbooks Accessibility Authoring Tool will be available as a paid add-on ($299/year for single-institution networks; $499/year for shared networks) in order to support sustainability for this frequently-requested capability.

This release marks the first tool in Pressbooks’ new Content Readiness Toolkit, a set of add-on tools to help Pressbooks users save time while improving the quality and accessibility of their published work.

How the Accessibility Authoring Tool works

When activated, the Accessibility Authoring Tool cues logged-in users about common accessibility issues in their book content, such as headings and alt-text. Authors, collaborators, editors, and administrators may view flagged issues directly in Pressbooks as they build or edit chapters, make changes to resolve problems, track improvements over time, and even download reports for future reference.

When this tool is activated on a network, content creators and editors will see an in-product banner that explains the new functionality and links them to a short instructional video about how the tool works.

>> Read the release notes for more details

Next steps

If you’d like to participate in the free trial or if you have questions, please email premiumsupport@pressbooks.com or reach out to your account manager. Or, if you’re a Network Manager, you may self-activate the trial by logging into Pressbooks and looking for the in-product notification inside the platform. We’re excited to activate this feature for your network and make it available for your creators.

Thank you for supporting Pressbooks and our joint commitment to accessible content.

Pressbooks and the U.S New Rule on Accessibility
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Excited to explore this tool more! You mentioned that part of the trial is an opportunity to share feedback. Will there be a formal feedback process at the end of the trial that we can engage with? Or is there another preferred way to share feedback?

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Hi Allia!

Our UX/UI Designer Michelle has drafted a survey for this purpose. Right now, the plan is to send this to folks who enabled the add-on and they can forward it along to users at their discretion (we’ll be sending it closer to the end of the trial date).

We can also provide the survey link to you sooner if that’s helpful?

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Great! Thank you! No need to send it sooner, just curious about the process.

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Thanks for the question Allia!

Also, I just wanted to add: based on survey responses, Michelle might do additional 1:1 interviews with folks if there’s something we’d like to dive into more deeply. (We offer a $25 thank you gift card in appreciation for their time.)

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