Alternative text descriptions, often abbreviated as “alt text”, describe the content or purpose of an image so that users with visual disabilities can still understand the purpose of the image. Alt text can be very simple or quite complex, depending on the image and how it is being used.

Adding alt text to images

After you have added an image to your document, right-click to open the contextual menu, and then choose “View Alt Text…” (towards the bottom of the menu).

The Alt Text pane will open to the right side of the document window. You can enter your alt text into the text box in this pane. Word offers a “Generate alt text for me” button that attempts to use AI to recognize the content of the image and create alt text, but it is very rarely actually useful, and it’s usually best to write your own alt text.

The “Mark as decorative” checkbox allows you to skip adding alt text for an image that does not actually convey any information, but is used only as a decorative element, such as clipart of blowing leaves used for a fall quarter syllabus.

This option should be used carefully, as even images that are not directly related to the content of the document may still need alt text. For example, an instructor may create a syllabus that includes an amusing cartoon, and may think that they should mark that image as decorative because the cartoon does not give any information directly related to the syllabus. However, the point of alt text is to help make sure that assistive technology users get as close as possible to the same experience as other users, so they should be provided the same humorous aside as users who are not using assistive technology.

Adding alt text to groups

If you have multiple related images in a presentation, it may be easier to group them together and write alt text once, instead of writing alt text for every image.

Begin by selecting all of the related images, right-click to open the contextual menu, and then choose “Group” (towards the middle of the menu).

After the images are grouped, you can write alt text for the entire group of images at once. In this example, I might write something like “Photos of Accessibility Resources, including campus posters, the department sign, and a computer workstation.”