How may I curtail or minimize the text below CKEditor (while keeping it available for screen readers)?
if you want something interactive, you can do this - this example assumes a field called body working on a node of type article, adjust as necessary:


in css, for .page-node-add-article .field-name-body .filter-wrapper .fieldset-wrapper { display:none; } - this will initially hide the text format
add this JS either in a custom module or in html.tpl.php before &lt;/body&gt;, so long as it runs after ckeditor, or the classes won't exist and throw an error:

&lt;script&gt;
    Drupal.behaviors.ckeditor_fix = {
        attach: function (context, settings)
        {
            jQuery('.page-node-add-article .field-name-body .filter-wrapper').once(function()
            {
                jQuery(this).append('&lt;div id="filter_show" style="width:100%; background:#ccc; text-align:center; cursor:pointer;"&gt;show/hide format information&lt;/div&gt;');

                jQuery('#filter_show').click(function()
                {
                    jQuery('.page-node-add-article .field-name-body .filter-wrapper .fieldset-wrapper').slideToggle();
                });
            });
        }
    };
&lt;/script&gt;