Articles in this section

How to use alternative text in Libraries

This article guides you step by step through the process of providing alternative text on different visual assets.

  Prerequisites

Why use alternative text

Alt text (alternative text) is used to make visual content accessible for users with visual impairments. Alt text will be read out by assistive technology (e.g. screen readers) making visual information understandable for users with visual impairments. Alt text is only displayed to all end users in the case when visual content fails to load on a page otherwise it is only "visible" for screen readers and not displayed to end users in a visual manner.

Which assets should have alt text

All visual assets (images, slides, slide elements and presentations) in Templafy should have an alt text to make sure the assets are accessible for users navigating Templafy Library with screen readers.

How to add alt text to visual assets (images)

To start adding alt text to assets, open Admin Center and access the Images Library selection/folder.

  1.  Click on the selected image file.
  2.  Add/Edit your alt text.
  3.  Click Save.

ImageLibrary_AltText.png

  Important

  • You can auto-populate alt text in Images Library by enabling AI alt text in Library Configuration (Enable or disable automatic alt text for Images (Azure AI Vision)).
  • The alternative text may be automatically populated on upload, if it already exists in the 'alt text' properties of an image uploaded individually or as a zip.
  • If you want to upload an image without an associated metadata file, then please ensure that the alt text information is in the "Comments" field of the image property.
  • When visual assets are uploaded in a zip file, their metadata, including any alt text, will be copied to Templafy.

How to add alt text to visual assets (PowerPoint)

For PowerPoint templates and assets (Presentations, Slides, Slide elements), alt text needs to be added to the individual slides. To add alt text on individual slides of a presentation:

  1. Click on the selected file.
  2. Add/Edit your alt text:
    • In the Slides tab, you can add alt text that will only be applied to a selected slide.
    • When slides are grouped as a slide collection, the first slide alt text will be read out by the screen reader.
  3. Click Save.

What to keep in mind when writing alt text

  • It's important to keep the alt text descriptive, yet concise.
  • The alt text can be maximum 140 characters.
  • Purely decorative visual content does not need alt text as it does not convey relevant information for the end user and it will just add noise to the experience of navigating the library with a screen reader.
  • Things not to include in alt text:
    • Photo credits and copyright information.
    • Redundant phrases 'image of' and 'photo of'.
    • Any information that all the users need to access as alt text is only 'visible' to screen readers.
    • Information that is provided by the title of the image, slide, slide element, and presentations.

Alt text on image assets when inserted in documents, presentations and spreadsheets

If an image asset has alt text provided by the admin, the alt text will be carried over when inserted through Templafy Library Add-in, yet there are a few exceptions.

Image alt text carried over when inserted through Templafy Library add-ins:

File type VSTO Add-ins (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) Web Add-ins (Word, Excel, Outlook) Web Add-in (PowerPoint)
.jpeg, .jpg, .png, .gif  
.svg    

When the alt text is not carried over, it can be added manually through the native alt text functionality in Office applications. Learn more here.

library
Was this article helpful?
0 out of 0 found this helpful

Comments

0 comments

Article is closed for comments.