This statement was last updated in August 2025. 

Our commitment to accessibility

We want everyone to be able to access our resources.

We are committed to ensuring that all our products, services, platforms, and websites are accessible to as wide an audience as possible. We strive to deliver equal access to the knowledge we provide. And we proactively and continually improve the quality and accessibility of our content, to address the needs of all customers and support them to reach their highest potential.

We are guided in this work by global legislation and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), UK Equality Act 2010, Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), and the European Accessibility Act (EAA). We also partner with Bookshare, delivered by Benetech in the US, and RNIB Bookshare in the UK.

Our goal is to ensure that all our products, platforms, and content are ‘born accessible’. This means that they are accessible from their creation. 

Accessibility video and transcript

What is accessibility? 

Accessibility means that people are not excluded from using a product or service on the basis of experiencing a disability.  

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.3bn people experience significant disability over the course of their lifetime. That is 16 percent of the world’s population, or one in six of us. Our audience also includes those with temporary disabilities, conditions, and general impairments. These can require reasonable adjustments to help people use our products. 

Inclusive access means that anyone can engage with products, places, services, and technology without any barriers. It means that someone with a disability can do what they need to do in a similar amount of time and effort as someone who does not. People can be independent, empowered, and not be frustrated by something that is poorly designed or implemented.

What is web accessibility? 

An accessible website means someone can complete the task they are trying to achieve without encountering a barrier or issue. We are working towards compliance with internationally recognized accessibility guidelines. These include W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA Standard. This sets out four principles, which require that our content is: 

  • Perceivable. Information and website elements must be presented in ways everyone can perceive, regardless of disability.
  • Operable. Everyone must be able to use the website no matter how they interact with it. Someone using only a keyboard should be able to do everything a mouse user can do.
  • Understandable. Information must make sense to everyone, including people who find reading difficult. Content should be written in clear, simple language.
  • Robust. The website must work properly with different technologies people might use, such as screen readers or other assistive tools.

This means that our digital content and platforms must follow a foundation of web accessibility, regardless of the abilities or the software and technologies used by the reader.  

Why is accessibility important? 

Our purpose is to foster human progress through knowledge. That means making knowledge accessible to everyone. A commitment to accessibility is good for us, and good for our customers. It challenges us to deliver inclusive design, drive innovation, expand the reach of what we publish, and meet legal requirements. It means more people can read our books and journals, leading to academic impact and better customer experience.

Research consistently shows that an environment where everyone has equal opportunities is not only fair but leads to more innovative, impactful, and higher-quality scientific research. We work to create inclusive products and services to empower the research communities we serve, as well as wider society. 

Accessibility standards and legislation

We are committed to complying with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA Standard to ensure compliance with the following legislation and standards:

Our accessibility partnerships

As our books publish, they are automatically distributed to two Bookshare channels, in the US and the UK. Between these channels, 95 percent of our eBook catalog is available in PDF or EPUB formats globally. This ensures our content is immediately available to students with a print disability to participate in classroom lectures alongside their peers. 

  • Bookshare US is delivered by Benetech in the US, which makes eBooks available to readers with a print-disability. We joined in 2010 and have 170,000 titles in EPUB format hosted on the site.
  • RNIB Bookshare – UK education Collection is delivered by Royal National Institute of Blind People. The service is available for educators and learners with print disabilities. We joined in 2013 and have 170,000 titles in EPUB and PDF formats hosted on the site.

Our accessibility achievements

We are signatories to the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) Charter and the Publishing Accessibility Action Group UK (PAAG) Charter. We are also proud to have achieved the following awards and recognitions:

How we make our products accessible

We are committed to making our products accessible to all. We do this in the following ways. 

Image descriptions (alt text)

Image descriptions (also known as alternative text, or alt text), help people using screen readers to access all our content. We provide alt text in most of our journals and eBooks – and we are working on the rest. Long descriptions are supplied where necessary, for more complex images. 

  • Journals. Over 605 key journals contain some level of alt text, spanning 7,523 articles.
  • eBooks. Over 10,590 titles have been published with 100 percent alt text. Hundreds more are in production as of January 2025. From June 2024, all new frontlist eBook titles have alt text created during publication. The backlist is currently being worked on, to ensure all eBooks are compliant with the relevant legislation and guidelines.

We also help our authors submit alt text for images with their final manuscripts. We provide a website with accessible content guidelines for authors. This includes our Alt Text Guide for Books, and example images grouped by subject. 

eBooks

We publish eBooks in both PDF and EPUB3 format. Varying levels of accessibility are available depending on the age of the product.

Our eBook content is designed with a logical reading order. It includes mark-up and heading structure to ensure easy navigation and compatibility with assistive technologies. These include screen readers and the use of keyboard navigation.

Our EPUBs contain accessibility features for structured navigation and reading order. This ensures that you can navigate content by chapter, page, and subheading. They also support magnification and reflow of content. This allows you to adjust the font size to meet your needs.

This is true of titles published since 2018. More historical titles may not offer this functionality. We have more than 180,000 eBooks available, and we are continually digitizing and upgrading our backlist content. If you would like to recommend a published title for digitization, we would love to hear from you. We can then explore your needs and expand our digital offering, as long as the rights permit.

We also upgraded 50,000 EPUB2 files into the more accessible EPUB3 format during a two-year project, which was completed in 2023. This work improved the structural integrity and navigation of these files, with accessibility in mind.

Journals

Journal articles are available in HTML, PDF, and EPUB3 format. Varying levels of accessibility are available depending on the age of the product.

We completed a project in 2023 to convert more than 360,000 journal articles from PDF into EPUB3. These are now accessible on our journals platform, Taylor & Francis Online (TFO). The platform currently hosts more than one million EPUB3 files. All newly published articles will be converted automatically. This will allow customers to choose between PDF or EPUB3.

Video and ancillary materials

We remediate online content, such as PowerPoints, held on our Instructor and Student Resources sites (ISRs). If a DVD is packaged with a book that you have bought, it should already contain closed captioning. We provide transcripts wherever possible.

We have migrated DVD and Disc content for close to 1,000 titles to a downloadable format. This better supports customers of both print and eBooks. We are working to improve the provision of accessible support materials across our websites.

We provide YouTube playlists for many of our ISR sites. YouTube lets you turn on closed captioning for individual videos, or for all videos by setting this as your default. To turn on closed captions, click the CC icon at the bottom-right of a video. To turn on closed captions for all YouTube videos, change your account settings. More information on how to do this can be found by going to YouTube Help.

Request service

When a work is unavailable for purchase in a suitable format, we aim to provide one within three working days. Institutions and individuals can place their request via our Academic VIP (Visually Impaired Persons) Team in one of the following ways:

The texts we provide are Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free and are mostly available in searchable PDF format. This works with most screen reading software. We can also supply texts in Word, EPUB, or XML format.

Some content in PDF format may not have been designed for accessibility. For example, older archive content reproduced from original printed sources may be presented as scanned PDFs, or images of text. We will always attempt to supply an OCR PDF (with optical character recognition) for screen reading, but this may not always be possible.

Please note, when the purchase of an accessible eBook or journal article is not possible and a request is made, we require that the requested title has been legally obtained (by either the university or individual) before we are able to provide the text. Texts published before the year 2000 are less likely to be immediately available in electronic format.

All material published by Taylor & Francis Group, and its imprints, is protected under international copyright and intellectual property laws. We ask you to respect this when using our content.

How we make our platforms and websites accessible 

We are committed to ensuring all users have a fully accessible and inclusive user experience. Here are some of the ways we do that across our websites. 

Accessibility features of taylorandfrancis.com (this site)

This website was developed to meet and exceed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard. If you experience issues with the site or need an accommodation, please contact Taylor & Francis Customer Services.   

  • Navigation. We have provided consistent global navigation links, and each page has a breadcrumb trail of navigation leading back to the homepage. All pages on the site contain a search box. There is also a ‘skip to content’ link on every page. 
  • Markup and headings. This website has been built to modern web standards using valid XHTML and CSS. We have used headings properly to help assistive technology users browse the page content.
  • Alt text. All images on our site should have alt text, so they can be accessed by people using screen readers. 

Taylor & Francis Online (TFO)

Our journals platform, Taylor & Francis Online, includes the following accessibility features:

  • ReadSpeaker offers a text to audio option for all journal articles. This improves accessibility and enriches the content for everyone. 
  • eReader reading options allow you to select a font that suits your reading preferences when viewing articles in EPUB format. This improves accessibility and reading comfort. 
  • Signposting of retractions and expressions-of-concern was enhanced in 2024. This makes the status of articles more visible to everyone, and allows screen reader users to reach the links easily.

Taylor & Francis eBooks

Our fully inclusive eBooks platform meets the gold standard for web accessibility. We are proud to have achieved WCAG 2.1 AA status. More than 180,000 book titles are available in PDF and EPUB format, and 153,000 in EPUB3 format. The EPUB format was introduced to the Taylor & Francis eBooks platform in September 2024, along with our new eReader. 

Routledge

When buying an eBook on Routledge.com you will use the VitalSource Bookshelf platform to access it. VitalSource has invested in making the reading experience accessible. They highlight accessibility features at product level. This means you can see if a book is suitable for your needs before buying or opening it. 

How to optimize your set-up for your needs

AbilityNet provides useful advice and simple ‘how to’ guides on how to make your device easier to use, so you can make the most of the internet. You can also find accessibility support on the Apple, Google, and Microsoft websites. 

Screen reader users

Screen readers use a common set of commands allowing you to navigate through a page using the headings:

  • h – cycle through the headings
  • Shift + h – cycle backwards through the headings
  • 1 – 6 – move to the next heading of the same level. For example, 1 will move you to the next level 1 heading, 2 will move you to the next level 2 heading.
  • Shift + 1 – 6 – as above but moving through each heading backwards
  • Insert + F6 – provide a list of all headings on a page.

Opera users

If you are browsing the site using Opera, you can cycle through the headings using these commands:

  • s – cycle through the headings
  • w – cycle backwards through the headings.

Accessibility contacts

Our Accessibility team welcomes questions, requests for guidance, and suggestions for areas where we could improve. Please get in touch with any of the following. 

Stacy Scott, Head of Accessibility

Stacy Scott, joined Taylor & Francis in 2021. She provides central oversight, leadership, guidance, coordination, and support for our accessibility initiatives. She also provides a clear accessibility strategy across the company.​ 

Stacy says: “Accessibility is a stepping stone to inclusion. Our ultimate goal is to have everything as accessible as possible, so that we have the complete, ultimate inclusion experience for everyone.” Hear more from Stacy in our video and transcript: Our commitment to accessibility at Taylor & Francis. 

Stacy Scott on LinkedIn

Jennie Mather, Accessibility Officer

Jennie Mather joined Taylor & Francis in 2024. She supports the development and delivery of our business-wide accessibility strategy. She also manages our performance dashboard, and coordinates accessibility audits. This ensures our portfolio meets legal standards and offers customers the best user journey. Jennie has a lot of experience in accessibility, strategy, and brand and inclusive product design. She is a truly wonderful disability advocate and ally. Read more in our Q&A with Jennie Mather.

Jennie Mather on LinkedIn

Customer Services

Please contact Taylor & Francis Customer Services with any accessibility related queries.

If you have trouble with any assistive technologies while using our eBooks, or require remediation on video or ancillary content, please contact [email protected]. 

Useful links and resources

Our accessibility documentation

While our platforms and websites may vary, we are working to enhance accessibility and user experience across all our sites. Individual Accessibility Statements and Accessibility Conformance Reports (ACRs) are available. Note: an ACR may also be referred to as a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT).

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  • Author Services | Accessibility Statement – coming soon
  • Author Services | ACR  – coming soon

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  • F1000 | Accessibility Statement – coming soon
  • F1000 | ACR – coming – coming soon

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  • LibrarianResources | Accessibility Statement – coming soon
  • Librarian Resources | ACR – coming – coming soon

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  • Submission Portal | Accessibility Statement – coming soon
  • Submission Portal | ACR – coming soon

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