Accessible Without Style Sheets

General comments

Style sheets are an efficient way of formatting Web pages and this provision is not intended to discourage their use.  However, at the present time Web pages need to be readable without style sheets because not all browsers have "caught up" to supporting them.

Style sheets allow Web page designers to make global site-wide format changes by changing a few simple lines of code on one style sheet.  Also, once support for style sheets becomes widespread in browsers, they will be one of the primary tools for enhancing accessibility.  This is because style sheets separate formatting from content, allowing different people to view the same page in different ways to meet their particular needs. For example, a low vision user might view a page with a style that renders all text very large and contrasty, while a person using a PDA might view the same page in a small font without graphic embellishments.

For these and other reasons, the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative), on whose guidelines the 508 rules were based, encourages developers to "control presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation elements and attributes."  Nevertheless, at the present time not all assistive-technology tools support style sheets, so it is necessary to ensure that your Web pages are readable without an associated style sheet.

There are several ways of using style sheets while ensuring your pages are readable by everyone.

Perhaps the easiest way is to provide a link to a text-only or straight HTML version without styles.  If this is done, the text-only link should be at the very top of your page, so that it will be easily found by all browsers.  While this method does require an extra version of your page(s), if you have implemented styles efficiently, that should not involve much more than stripping the styles out of your document.

Another way is to follow the detailed WAI guidance on making styles accessible available on the W3C website.

Additional information about Rule 1194.22(d)

DOJ Discussion of Rule 1194.22(d): The DOJ guidance primarily explains what styles are and why they are useful, but does not give tips on how to make documents using style sheets readable without them. Full DOJ Guidance on Rule d

W3C/WAI Guidance on Rule 1194.22(d): Making Web documents readable without associated style sheets falls under WAI Checkpoint 6.1, which is in turn under WAI Guideline 6, "Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully."  This Checkpoint provides three sets of tips to help you organize your documents so they may be read without style sheets:

CSS Techniques: Generated content
CSS Techniques: Rules and borders
CSS Techniques: Using style sheet positioning and markup to transform gracefully

Department of Commerce Web Advisory Council (WAC)
U.S. Department of Commerce

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Page last updated October 12, 2010