Images and Alt Text

It is common to add images to a document to provide additional context to users. This training has images on nearly every page to help visual learners understand the written instructions better. To make your document compliant, you need to add alt text to each image so that screen readers have a description of the image content.

Steps for Adding Alt Text to Images

1. Right click the image (control + click on Mac)
2. Select Edit Alt Text from the context menu (select View Alt Text on Mac)
3. Provide a description to the image or mark it decorative in the alt text panel

Alt Text Panel

Never use the option to generate a description automatically.  Word does not generate compliant alt text descriptions automatically.  Your description should be specific to the image and help describe its purpose.

Decorative Images

Images that do not provide context or only exist as decorations should be marked decorative in the edit alt text menu. Decorative images are not detected by screen readers and are bypassed.