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Guide

Free accessible agenda and minutes templates

Two Word templates, one for a meeting agenda and one for its minutes, free and with no account. They use real headings, lists and table header rows, so the structure a screen reader follows can carry through to a tagged PDF.

Published
Last reviewed
Format
Word (.docx): opens in Word, Google Docs and LibreOffice

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They’re free to download, fill in and change for your own meetings. Replace the text in square brackets, and keep the heading styles, lists and table header rows: each one is there for a reason, below.

What’s inside, and why

  • One heading per agenda item, with its number in the heading text. A screen reader user can list the headings and jump straight to item 6; in Word they appear in the navigation pane. Each heading names its item. (WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships; 2.4.6 Headings and Labels.)
  • Real lists for ways to take part, the consent agenda, reports and attendance, made with Word’s list formatting rather than typed numbers or dashes, so a screen reader can announce how many items there are. (1.3.1.)
  • A table for each recorded vote, with a header row (Member, Vote) marked as a header, so a screen reader can tell you the column name as you move through the votes. (1.3.1.)
  • A document title and language set in the file’s properties, so the title can be shown and announced, and the text is read in English. The title is a placeholder too: change it to your meeting’s. (2.4.2 Page Titled, 3.1.1 Language of Page.)
  • Placeholders in square brackets, not underscores, which a screen reader either skips, so the blank isn’t heard, or reads as a run of symbols, depending on its settings.
  • In the agenda, an accommodation line saying who to contact for another format, and by when.

Both templates pass every check in Ada Editor. Our automated tests import them the way Ada Editor imports any Word file, each time our code changes. A template filled in with real content still needs checking: alt text, link text and tables you add are yours.

Using them

  1. Fill it in, keeping the styles. Change the document’s title in its properties (in Word, under File, then Info or Properties) to the meeting’s name and date. Add a new item by copying an item heading, not by typing bold text. Give any image alt text (how to describe maps and site plans), and write links that say what they open.
  2. Export a tagged PDF. In Word for Windows, use File, Save As, choose PDF, open Options and keep “Document structure tags for accessibility” checked. In Word for Mac, choose PDF and “Best for electronic distribution and accessibility”, which Microsoft says sends the document to its online service. Don’t print to PDF: it drops the structure. Our Word to tagged PDF guide covers Google Docs and LibreOffice too.
  3. Or import it into Ada Editor, which checks it as you write and exports a tagged PDF in your browser.
  4. Post the PDF itself. Our steps for posting a PDF to an agenda system explain why the copy people open should be the one you made. Where your website can publish pages, post the agenda as a page too.

Making minutes accessible

The minutes template has the structure. What’s left is what you write into it:

  • Record each motion and its result in words, and each roll-call vote in the vote table. Don’t show a vote only by colour or bold, which screen readers don’t announce by default.
  • Name each exhibit or attachment the minutes refer to, and link it where it’s posted, so “the attached report” is something a reader can find.
  • Describe any image you include, such as a map or photo shown at the meeting: our guide to describing maps, site plans and charts has examples.
  • Post the approved minutes as a page where your website allows it, with the PDF linked: our guide to agendas as a web page or a PDF applies to minutes too.

Minutes and the Title II rule

For cities, towns and other public entities, the ADA’s Title II rule covers posted documents. The Department of Justice says city council minutes created after the compliance date wouldn’t fall under the archive exception, “even if they are posted in the ‘archive’ section” of the city’s website. Our guide to Title II for meeting documents has the dates and exceptions.

Corrections and limits

These are templates, not legal advice, and using them doesn’t make a document meet any standard on its own: what you put in them decides that.

Found something wrong, or something a clerk needs that they lack? Report it on GitHub (public).

None yet.

Sources

Read on October 12, 2026.