Alternative text (also known as “alt text,” “alt tags,” or “alt descriptions”) is text that appears in place of an image on a website if it fails to load (or if you hover the cursor over it). It also has two more key uses:
Alt text is therefore crucial for websites. But it’s also vital if you’re using images or charts in a document and you want it to be accessible.
What should you use as alt text for images, though? And how can you add alt text in Microsoft Word and Google Docs? Let’s take a look.
The simple answer is to describe what it depicts in relation to the surrounding text. But there are a few other considerations to keep in mind:
In addition, some images may already have alt text, especially if you downloaded them from the internet. As such, it’s wise to check the alt text on an image, and amend it as required, before using it in your content.
For an image in a Microsoft Word document, you can add alt text by:
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You can then close the sidebar and the image will have the alt text entered.
In some versions of Microsoft Word, you can also mark an image as decorative if it is not important for the meaning of a document. This will tell screen readers to skip over it, letting them focus on the most relevant text.
To add alt text to an image in Google Docs, meanwhile, you need to:
You can use this same process to check and edit existing alt text in images.
By describing the visuals in your document, alt text makes your work accessible to more people. And to further ensure your writing is easy to read, why not get it proofread by the professionals?
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