Most Pressbooks accessibility resources take the form of guides: helpful for understanding best practices, but not something an author can duplicate and begin writing in immediately. New authors often start with a blank book or clone an existing one, inheriting inconsistent formatting, inaccessible structures, and legacy issues they may not even notice.

The Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Template was designed to solve that problem. It provides a fully accessible, WCAG‑aligned foundation that authors can use from day one, with built‑in instructions that explain how each element works and how to maintain accessibility as they write.

At the time I created it, this was, to the best of my knowledge, the first template of its kind.

The Challenge

Pressbooks authors, and especially first‑time OER creators, face several challenges, including:

• Starting from a blank book leads to inconsistent formatting and accessibility issues.
• Cloning an existing book often carries over legacy problems, outdated styles, or inaccessible structures.
• Accessibility guides exist, but they require authors to interpret and implement best practices, often without additional support.
• H5P activities must be created from scratch, which can be time‑consuming and intimidating for new authors.

There was no turnkey, WCAG‑aligned template that authors could duplicate and trust.

The Problem Behind the Problem

I return to this often: accessibility has to be built into the foundation, not added afterward. However, overwhelmed authors don’t need more instructions; they need a clear model they can clone, copy, or begin editing immediately.

A template that:

• demonstrated accessible structure
• provided examples of pre‑formatted pages
• included examples of alt text, captions, long descriptions, tables, and media
• offered a pre-populated library of ready‑to-edit H5P activities with examples
• and embedded accessibility best practices directly into the structure of the book itself

would, I hoped, dramatically reduce barriers for our Campus Manitoba authors when creating high‑quality OER.

At the time, no such resource existed. As far as I could see, there was no accessible, ready‑to‑duplicate Pressbooks starter template that demonstrated best practices in context rather than describing them abstractly.

So, I decided to create one.

Improving Readability Through Custom CSS

To support accessible, readable typography, this template includes a small amount of custom CSS. At the time of development, Pressbooks did not offer Merriweather, Verdana, or Tahoma as theme‑selectable fonts, even though these typefaces are well‑established for improving readability for users with dyslexia, low vision, and other print‑related disabilities. Many default fonts in Pressbooks suffer from common accessibility issues: similar character shapes, confusing numerals, uniform letterforms, or low‑contrast strokes.

These problems make characters like lowercase l, uppercase l, and 1 difficult to distinguish, and can cause digits such as 6, 8, and 9 to resemble letters like b or B. In extreme cases, as with Uncial Antiqua, the capital O, lowercase o, and zero are visually identical.

Instructions: Learn more about the fonts chosen for the template. Below is a collapsible accordion with four (4) sections. Expand each section to learn more about the fonts used in the Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Template.

Instructions: Below is a collapsible accordion containing the full custom CSS styling used in the Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Template. Select the section to expand and view the complete stylesheet.

Feel free to customize the CSS as needed to fit your content and design. 

<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>

@charset "utf-8";
/* CSS Document */
/* Custom Pressbooks CSS created by Kristy Lacroix, 2024 */
/* Resize the logo in the navbar */
.header__brand img {
    max-height: 85px;
}
/* Global accessible font styles*/
.front-matter p, .part p, .chapter p, .back-matter p, body#tinymce.wp-editor p {
    font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif !important;
}
.front-matter ul, .part ul, .chapter ul, .back-matter ul,
.front-matter ol, .part ol, .chapter ol, .back-matter ol {
   font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif !important;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
  padding-top: 10px;
  font-family: 'Merriweather', Georgia, Arial, sans-serif !important;
  text-transform: none !important;
}
/* Add space above Key Takeaways textbox */
.textbox--key-takeaways {
  margin-top:30px;
}
/* Styling for subscript numbers */
sub {
  vertical-align: super; /* Adjust the vertical alignment */
  font-size: smaller; /* Optional: Adjust the font size to match the surrounding text */
}
/* Accordion */
/* Hide all content sections by default */
.content-accordion &gt; div {
  display: none;
}
/* Style the button and arrow */
.content-accordion button {
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
  border: none;
  border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
  cursor: pointer;
  padding: 10px;
  width: 100%;
  text-align: left;
}
/* Rotate the arrow when section is expanded */
.content-accordion button svg {
  transition: transform 0.3s ease;
}
/* Style for expanded state */
.content-accordion button[aria-expanded="true"] {
  background-color: #ddd;
}
/* Rotate the arrow when section is expanded */
.content-accordion button[aria-expanded="true"] svg {
  transform: rotate(90deg);
}
/* Show content when section is expanded */
.content-accordion button[aria-expanded="true"] + div {
  display: block;
}
/* Dropshadow for images */
.shadow {
  filter: drop-shadow(7px 5px 5px #CCCCCC);
  display: table;
}
/* Custom styles for captions */
figcaption {
 padding-top: 20px; /* Add space between captions and images */
 font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif !important;
}
figure figcaption {
  font-style: normal !important; /* removes auot-italics */
}
/* Custom table CSS */
.customtable {
  border: 1px solid black;
  padding: 0em 1em 0em 0em;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  width: 100%;
  font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif !important;
}
.customtable tr {
  border-bottom: 1px solid black;
}
.customtable td {
  padding: 1em;
}
/* External link icon */
 a.external::after {
    content: url('https://pressbooks.openedmb.ca/app/uploads/sites/95/2024/02/external-link-icon-30x30-1.png'); /* Replace 'external-link-icon.png' with the path to your image */
      margin-left: 5px; /* Adjust the margin as needed to position the image */
    margin-top: -5px;
    position: absolute;
}
/* No line break on paragraphs */
* {
   -webkit-hyphens: manual !important;
   -moz-hyphens: manual !important;
   -ms-hyphens: manual !important;
   hyphens: manual !important;
}
/* Appendix F Gloss Template Samples - delete if not required for OER*/
.glosscontainer {
    width: 100%; /* Adjust this width up to 100%, whatever your preference */
    margin-left: auto; /* Delete if you don't want the tables centered */
    margin-right: auto; /* Delete if you don't want the tables centered */
}
/* Table top specific styling */
.tabletop,
.interlinear {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    width: 100%;
}
.tabletop td,
.interlinear td {
    border: 1px solid #ededed; /* Delete '1px solid #' and replace with 'none' when glosses are all complete. */
    padding: 8px;
}
.list1top,
.list1 {
    width: 3%;
    text-align: center;
    vertical-align: middle;
}
.list2top,
.list2 {
    width: 2.5%;
}
.spacertop,
.spacer {
    width: 12%;
    text-align: right; /* Change to 'center' in .spacer if needed */
    vertical-align: middle;
}
/* Small caps styling */
.small-caps {
    font-variant: small-caps;
    padding-top: 0;
    margin: 0;
}
/* For sign language glosses ONLY*/
.interlinear-SL {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    width: 50%; /* Keeps table at a optimal width - can be adjusted */
}
td.cell-border {
      border-top: solid 4px; /* Creates the border above cells */
}
td.spacer-left {
    text-align: left; /* Controls text alignment in td cell */
    vertical-align: middle;
}
td.spacer-center {
    text-align: center; /* Controls text alignment in td cell */
    vertical-align: middle;
}
td.spacer-right {
    text-align: right; /* Controls text alignment in td cell */
    vertical-align: middle;
}
.interlinear-SL td {
    padding-top: 5px; /* Controls spacing between cells to prevent collapse */
      padding-bottom: 5px;
}
.non-manual {
      text-align: right; /* Alignment for non-manual 'hn' and 're' elements */
}
/* End of sign language gloss styling*/

</code></pre>

Outcomes & Impact

The Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Template has demonstrated strong engagement and meaningful impact since its release. According to Pressbooks analytics (February 2024 to May 2026), it has received:

Beyond analytics, the resource has gained recognition across the open education community, was circulated as a recommended resource by the Rebus Foundation, and Pressbooks has expressed interest in sharing it more widely as an example of accessible, well‑structured OER design. BCcampus also highlighted the AI acknowledgment template as a standout contribution.

Internally, the template has become an invaluable training tool for the Campus Manitoba team, providing a consistent, accessible foundation for onboarding new authors and supporting the creation of high‑quality OER across the network.

The Project in Action

As of June 2026, the Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Template is available on the OpenEd Manitoba PressbooksEDU Network.

Due to recent changes in provincial funding priorities, the long‑term hosting and maintenance of the network are uncertain. The template remains accessible for now, but its future availability will depend on decisions still being made.

This open template showcases what an accessible, high‑quality OER design looks like when done intentionally, systematically, and with real users in mind.

Project Team

Creator, Campus Manitoba Pressbooks Starter Template

KRISTY LACROIX

Editor

DAWNDENA GORDON

Special thanks to the Rebus Foundation for the programs and community spaces that inspired the creation of this project

Have a Question or Need Support?

Looking for help developing accessible OER or need support designing templates for your institution? Get in touch.

Professional enquiries only.