Accessibility: Alt Text

By Jamie Witman, OEN

This guide assumes that you have created an OEN Manifold account, have admin access to the backend, have created a project, and ingested a text or plan to ingest a text, or edit or create a text using the Manifold Editor. If you do not have Project Creator status, please review the Request an Account form.

For help creating a project and adding a text, see the Creating a Project Quick Guide.

What is Alt Text and why is it important for accessibility?

Alt text is descriptive text that you add to an image or graphic to make it accessible for all users. Alt text is read aloud by screen readers or other assistive technologies to provide blind or low-vision users with information about the image’s content and context. Without alt text users may not understand the purpose of an image in a document or on a webpage.

As a rule, Alt text should describe the image and also provide context for the image. For help with writing alt text you may want to take a look at some Alt Text Best Practices.

How do I include Alt Text in a Manifold Project?

Manifold gives you the option to author within the platform as well as ingest pre-authored content from sources like Word Documents or Google Docs. This guide will go over how to implement alt text appropriately both in your own Docs and within the Manifold Editor.

How to add Alt Text in a Word Doc or Google Doc

The process for adding Alt Text in Word and Google Docs is very similar. Once you’ve added your image to your Word Doc or Google Doc, you right click that image and you should see an option to add alt text.

In Word, after right clicking on an image and selecting View Alt Text, you’ll have the option to add your alt text.

In a Google Doc, after right clicking and selecting Alt text, you’ll get a pop up modal in which you can add your alt text.

When you ingest your Word Doc or Google Doc into Manifold, the alt text will be ingested along with the rest of the text.

How to add Alt Text in the Manifold Editor

To get started adding alt text using the Manifold Editor, first navigate to the Text and Section you wish to edit or add to. Then click on the Pencil icon to open up the Manifold Editor.

If you have an image already in the text you are editing, select the image and click on the Image icon in the upper right hand corner of the Editor. A pop up modal will appear with an option for adding Alt Text.

If you are adding an image to your text, you’ll follow the same step above while also pasting in the Image URL to add it to your text. Then add your Alt Text.

Checking Your Work

If you ever want to test that you only have Alt Text in your Project, Accessibility Bookmarklets and the WAVE browser extensions are good tools.

“OEN Manifold Community Guide: Alt Text” is licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 license. Last updated May 2025. It is adapted from “Alt Text For Images” By Elliott Stevens at University of Washington and licensed under a CC BY NC 4.0 license.