Office 2008 - Alt Text for Pics

[Ron Mochinski]

Our gov't org needs to make compliant docs. This means adding "alternate
text" to graphics. Office for Windows could always do this via the "Format"
dialog box. Office for Mac never - the box was there but it was greyed-out.
Thought I read someplace that you could in 2008. Anybody familiar with
this...? I don't even see the greyed-out box in the "Format" area anymore.

 

[CyberTaz]

No Ron, alt text - available if you save as HTML in Win Word - isn't an
option in Mac Word. Also, the "greyed-out" item you mention - the Text Box
page - has nothing to do with alt text. The Format [ObjectType] dialog is
shared by several different object types & that page is active if you have a
Text Box selected rather than a picture. It's also available in the Format
dialog of Word 2008, but the settings on that page are inactive unless
you're accessing it via a Text Box object's format properties.

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

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Our gov't org needs to make compliant docs. This means adding "alternate
text" to graphics. Office for Windows could always do this via the "Format"
dialog box. Office for Mac never - the box was there but it was greyed-out.
Thought I read someplace that you could in 2008. Anybody familiar with
this...? I don't even see the greyed-out box in the "Format" area anymore.

Hi,

On my list of millions of things to do was to make an add-in that takes
care of this. Mac Office has the ability to properly add the alt tags,
MacBU just never built an input box to let you enter a tag.

In Office 2004 it is possible to make and use add-ins. But not in Office
2008 because MacBU, well, a lot of things. So for Office 2008 there's
not much you can do about it unless you want to figure out a way to make
an AppleScript with a form field that somehow updates Word (please count
me out of this).

In Office whatever-is-next VBA will return and even if Microsoft doesn't
put the input form into the product I will make an add-in that takes
care of this. MacBU suffers from triskaidekaphobia, so they're not
calling version 13 version 13, as if calling it anything else would
somehow prevent it from being version 13.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are independent experts who are not affiliated with Microsoft.


Visit my blog
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-i7JMeio7cqvhotIUwCzaJWq9

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hi,

On my list of millions of things to do was to make an add-in that takes
care of this. Mac Office has the ability to properly add the alt tags,
MacBU just never built an input box to let you enter a tag.

In Office 2004 it is possible to make and use add-ins. But not in Office
2008 because MacBU, well, a lot of things. So for Office 2008 there's
not much you can do about it unless you want to figure out a way to make
an AppleScript with a form field that somehow updates Word (please count
me out of this).

In Office whatever-is-next VBA will return and even if Microsoft doesn't
put the input form into the product I will make an add-in that takes
care of this. MacBU suffers from triskaidekaphobia, so they're not
calling version 13 version 13, as if calling it anything else would
somehow prevent it from being version 13.

-Jim

Well, in China, Jim, there are far more people with tetrakaidekaphobia. They
are relaxed and comfortable with 13 (as is most of the world outside
corporate USA). But 14? Oh no ....

;-)

Clive
=====

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Well, in China, Jim, there are far more people with tetrakaidekaphobia. They
are relaxed and comfortable with 13 (as is most of the world outside
corporate USA). But 14? Oh no ....

Given the extraordinarily high ratio of users to purchasers in China,
tetradekaphobia may well be a marketing strategy...

 

[Ron Mochinski]

....do you know where I might be able to find the add-in for the "alt text"
for 2004? Being I've never touched VB in my life :-/

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Ron,

I didn't make the add-in. One day I was curious as to whether or not it
could be done. I made a userform with a text box and was able to add the
appropriate tag to the picture, and it survived saving as a web page and
going back and forth with Windows Word.

Making something for myself is very different from making something that
will be distributed. Something as simple as just grabbing some text gets
complicated really fast.

This is where I wish Microsoft had not released Office 2008 without VBA.
If they had, I'd be encouraging you to try your hand at writing your
first macro.

So at the moment you're stuck hand-coding the ALT tag into the HTML
script yourself.

I gave NeoOffice a try to see what happens. NeoOffice happily lets you
add the ALT tag to the picture using a dialog box. NeoOffice completely
forgets that you entered the tag when you save it as a web page. Same
thing if you save it in Microsoft Word format. The tag simply goes into
a black hole, apparently.

-Jim

...do you know where I might be able to find the add-in for the "alt text"
for 2004? Being I've never touched VB in my life :-/

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are independent experts who are not affiliated with Microsoft.


Visit my blog
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-i7JMeio7cqvhotIUwCzaJWq9