Public domain books online should be readable by everyone, at any size, with any device.

1.The standard we work to

We build every page against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 at level AA. That is a target, not a certificate. Nobody outside the company has audited this site, and we will not put a badge on it that suggests otherwise.

The reading pages are the part we care about most. A book page on Novelvora is mostly running text: the opening chapter, the editor's note, the correction ledger. Text is the easiest thing on the web to make accessible and the easiest to ruin with decoration, so our rule is short. Nothing sits on top of the words. No overlay, no floating toolbar, no sticky banner over the paragraph you are on.

Body text is set in Alegreya Sans at 18 pixels with a line height of 1.6 and a measure capped at 66 characters. Ink on paper here is #2A2419 on #EFE6D2, a contrast ratio above 12 to 1. The burnt accent used for links, #A4461D, clears 4.5 to 1 against the same paper.

2.Reading settings that work now

We do not ship our own text-size widget. Your browser already has a better one, and it remembers your choice across every site you read. Here is what we have checked:

• Zoom to 400%. Pages reflow to a single column at a 320-pixel width. You never scroll sideways to finish a line of Middlemarch. Wide tables, such as the fifteen-story timing table on Dubliners, scroll inside their own box instead of dragging the page.
• Text-only zoom. All type is sized in rem, so Firefox's "zoom text only" and Safari's minimum font size both work. Buttons grow with the label; none has a fixed height that clips it.
• Reader view. Chapter pages use real headings, paragraphs and a single main landmark, so Safari Reader and Firefox Reader View pull out the text cleanly. Many readers of long novels prefer this, and we don't fight it.
• Custom colours. Windows high-contrast mode and forced colours keep every link, rule and focus ring visible because none of them depends on a background image.
• Spelling. We keep original spellings. Austen's "chuse" stays "chuse". A screen reader will say it as written; the note beside it explains why, and it is marked up as ordinary text rather than an image or tooltip.

3.Keyboard, motion and focus

Press Tab once on any page and a "Skip to the content" link appears. Every control after it is reachable by keyboard in reading order, and each one shows a 2-pixel burnt-orange outline when it has focus.

On screens narrower than 1024 pixels the sidebar becomes a drawer. When it opens, focus moves inside it and stays there until you close it with Esc, the Close button or a tap on the shaded area behind. The Menu button reports whether the drawer is open.

The home page headline swaps one word every 2.8 seconds. Screen readers hear one complete sentence instead of the changing word, and if your system asks for reduced motion the word stops changing altogether. The same setting turns off the fade-and-rise on sections and the count-up on the catalogue figures; the numbers are simply there.

The book lookup on Find a book works with arrow keys and Enter. Results are a plain list of links, so a screen reader can move through them like any other list.

4.Large print and other formats

Some readers want paper. Our large print classic novels are printed sets made for book clubs, libraries and care homes, set at a larger size with generous leading. They are quoted by email on request, per group and format, through reading-group packs. There is no cart and no fixed price on the site.

If a single reader needs one of the twelve books in a format we don't list, such as a plain-text file for a braille display or a version with the editor's notes moved inline, write to [email protected]. The texts are in the public domain and we already hold a proofed master copy of each, so this is usually a small job. We will tell you plainly if it isn't.

5.Known gaps

These are the problems we know about as of the date at the top of this page. We list them because a statement with no gaps is a statement nobody tested.

The fonts load from Google Fonts. If that request is blocked, the page falls back to Georgia and your system sans-serif, which are perfectly readable but change the line lengths slightly.

6.How we test

Before a new book goes live, the typesetter reads its first chapter three ways: with VoiceOver on an iPhone, with NVDA and Firefox on Windows, and on a 320-pixel window at 200% zoom. That catches the failure we see most often in free editions, a lost line break that merges two speakers into one paragraph. A sighted reader can often guess who is talking. A screen reader user cannot.

We also check at 360, 414, 768, 1024, 1440 and 1920 pixels wide, and run an automated contrast and markup check. Automated tools find perhaps a third of real problems, which is why the listening pass comes first.

7.Tell us what broke

If a page stops you reading, we want the page address, what you were using (browser, screen reader, zoom level) and what happened. One sentence is enough.

• Email [email protected] with "Accessibility" in the subject.
• Call +1 (285) 555-7159.
• Write to Novelvora, 70 Oak Lane, Floor 2, Austin, Texas 82798.
• Or use the contact form.

Accessibility reports go to the front of the queue, ahead of pack inquiries. Fixes that touch a book's text are logged in that book's correction ledger, the same as a typo, under the terms of our text accuracy guarantee. For how we handle what you send, see the privacy policy; to get a copy of it back, use the data request page.