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Add Alt text to images

Adding Alternative text descriptions to images gives context for visually impaired users on screen readers

Dan Kemp avatar
Written by Dan Kemp
Updated over a week ago

Alt text for accessibility

Alt text (often referred to as 'alt attributes', 'alt descriptions', or 'alt tags') is crucial for web accessibility, making content usable by people with visual impairments.

When users access content using a screen reader, such as read mode in Book Creator or VoiceOver on iPads, it will read the descriptive alt text on images for them, which ensures the user has access to all written and visual content on the page.

Adding alt text in Book Creator

Adding alt text on images in Book Creator is simple. From inside a book in edit mode, users will select the image (or visual element) on the page to get the blue border around it, and then select the Inspector (i) button in the toolbar.

With the Inspector opened, there will be a text box for adding an Image Description or Alternative text for an image. Many times visual elements added onto a page from inside Book Creator (such as icons, emojis, or images) may already have Alt text included from the original source, so please review to ensure it is accurate.

Alt text best practices

When adding alt text to visual elements, it is important to follow best practices:

  • Specific: provide brief, accurate descriptions of the image's content and purpose

  • Concise: Keep alt text short with a few words each sentence, to avoid interrupting the reading flow

  • Repetition: Don't state it's an image or a picture, the screen readers already will identify that for the user

  • Context: Give the image's purpose on the page or in the article

  • Decorative: Don't add alt text on elements that are added onto a page for design purposes only

Using AI to generate accurate alt text

At Book Creator we understand the importance of alt text, but also realize that it must be crafted in a very specific way. To ensure the best possible alt text is available for our readers, we've added the ability to allow AI to generate the image descriptions for our users.

With the image selected and the inspector menu open, click on the image icon within the Image Description field. This will auto-generate an editable image description for the image. Press the Save button and the alt text will be saved to the image and able to be read aloud on a screen reading device.

We recommend adding alt text to all images and visual elements in published books that may have a wider audiences to ensure content accessibility for all readers.

For iPads

For iPad users, the process for adding alt text is similar. When the image is selected, click on the Inspector and under Accessibility add in the alt text for the image.

Users will then turn on VoiceOver in the iPad settings so the Alt text will be read when viewing the book in Apple Books.

Note: To activate VoiceOver on your iPad: Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver

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