Most workplace documents are harder to read than they need to be. Justified text, tiny fonts, stark white backgrounds and long unbroken paragraphs make every reader work harder, and for dyslexic colleagues that extra effort adds up across a whole day. Our free Dyslexia Style Guide sets out simple rules that remove those barriers, and you do not need any design skills to use it.
What the guide is
The Enna Dyslexia Style Guide is a practical reference for anyone who writes documents, slides, emails or web pages for other people to read. Each rule is there to cut the effort it takes to decode text, which helps dyslexic readers most but makes content easier for everyone.
It builds on established good practice, including the British Dyslexia Association’s own Dyslexia Style Guide, and turns it into steps you can apply straight away at work.
What is inside
The guide is organised into ten short sections:
- Typefaces: clean sans serif fonts, with no decorative or mixed typefaces.
- Size and emphasis: body text at 12pt or larger, and bold rather than italics, underlining or capitals for emphasis.
- Spacing and alignment: roughly 1.5 line spacing, left aligned text and lines of around 45 to 70 characters.
- Colour and contrast: dark text on a soft off white or cream background, with enough contrast and never colour alone to carry meaning.
- Headings and structure: real heading styles, descriptive headings and one idea per paragraph.
- Writing style: short sentences, active voice, plain words and acronyms spelled out.
- Images and diagrams: visuals that add meaning, clear labels and no text over pictures.
- Alt text and screen readers: useful alt text, meaningful link text and built in accessibility checkers.
- Video and motion: captions, transcripts and no autoplay.
- Screen and paper: tagged PDFs, reflowable text and sensible print choices.
It finishes with a one page checklist and tips for Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs and PDF export.
Why it matters
Dyslexia is common, and many dyslexic people never tell their employer. That means you cannot rely on individual requests to make your documents readable. Building good formatting into everyday practice removes a barrier for people you may not even know are affected.
It also saves time. Clear documents get read properly, questions go down, and fewer mistakes slip through. Our guide to dyslexia in the workplace explains more about the barriers dyslexic employees meet and how to remove them.
How to use it at work
Start with your templates
The quickest win is to fix the templates your organisation already uses. Update the default font, size, spacing and heading styles once, and every document built from them will follow the guide automatically.
Share it widely
Give the guide to everyone who writes for others, whether or not they are dyslexic. Comms, HR, L&D and anyone producing reports or slides will get the most from it.
Use it in conversations about adjustments
If a dyslexic colleague asks for changes to how information is shared, the guide gives you both a common reference. It sits well alongside our reasonable adjustment examples for dyslexic employees and our wider advice on supporting dyslexic employees.
Download the guide
Download the Dyslexia Style Guide (PDF), or visit our dyslexia style guide page for an overview.
How Enna can help
A style guide is a great first step towards accessible communication. Our Neuroinclusive Communication workshop takes it further, helping teams write, present and run meetings in ways that work for different kinds of thinkers.
If you want to know how accessible your organisation’s communications and processes really are, our neuroinclusion audits will tell you. Book a call to find out more.
