Creating accessible word documents / Applyingalternative text to a photo

[AngelicaC]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) In working with Word / Office 2008 I notice that there are no controls under format picture to add alternative text to a photo. (At least not that I could see) Is there another way to do this? I have located some other resources that advise doing so in order to make the document fully accessible.

Would greatly appreciate any feedback,
Thanks in advance,

AngelicaC

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, Angelica, but that's just one of many web development capabilities
you won't find among the limited scope of the convenience features stuffed
into Word. If you need real web design tools you need to obtain a decent web
design application intended for the purpose.

Alternative Text is a web functionality, Word is not a web design
application... There is no provision for Alternative Text on a printed page.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) In working with
Word / Office 2008 I notice that there are no controls under format
picture to add alternative text to a photo. (At least not that I could
see) Is there another way to do this? I have located some other
resources that advise doing so in order to make the document fully
accessible.

Would greatly appreciate any feedback,
Thanks in advance,

AngelicaC

Hi Angelica,

It is a problem that the Mac version of Office does not have the
implementation of the Alt Text that Windows does. It makes it impossible
for Mac users to add these tags so that screen readers can speak Alt Text.

Alt Text can be added in Windows Office, and they are not lost when the
documents are used on Macs. You just can't add or edit them.

For now, use Windows to add Alt Text. Also, please be sure to use Help >
Send Feedback to Microsoft and tell them you want the capability to add
and edit Alt Text, as well as the reason why (although it should be
obvious).

The next version of Microsoft Office (2011) will support Visual Basic
for Applications (VBA) programming language. If Microsoft does not
build-in Alt Text functionality, you'll probably be able to create the
feature yourself or find an add-in that does shortly after Office 2011
is released later this year.

-Jim