images play an important role in conveying information. But, for people with visual impairments, images can be inaccessible. This is why alt text is so important. Alt text is a brief description of an image that can be read by screen-reading software. It allows people with vision impairments to understand the images in your workbook. Including alt text is essential for making sure that all users can access the content of your spreadsheet. This post is going to show you exactly how to insert alternative text in Excel.
Add Alt Text with the Format Tab
When you select an object such as an image, shape, or chart a Format tab will appear on the ribbon. This will allow you to edit various effects for the object. But it also contains the command for adding alt text. Follow these steps to add alt text to your image. You should see the 8 resize handles appear when your image is selected. You should also see the Format tab appear in the ribbon. This will open the Alt Text window pane on the right side of the worksheet. You can optionally check the Mark as decorative setting so that anyone using a screen reader will know the image is not important to understanding the document. Now your image has an alt text description!
Add Alt Text with the Right Click Menu
By far the easiest way to add alt text to your images and other object is through the right-click menu. Add alt text to your image from the right-click menu. This is definitely the quickest way to add alt text to any object.
Add Alt Text with the Review Tab
Another place you can access the alt text command is from the Review tab. The image now has an alt text!
Add Alt Text to a Table
You can also add alt text to an Excel table. But alt text works a bit differently with tables. You can check out this post for more details on Excel tables. Follow these steps to add alt text to a table. This will open the Alternative Text menu. This will add an alt text to your Excel table object.
Add Alt Text with VBA
You can also add alt text using VBA. For this, you will need to know the object name to reference it in the VBA code. The name can be easily found using the Name Box. Select your image and you will be able to see the name in the upper left of the worksheet in the Name Box. The above VBA code will select “Picture 5” and then add the alt text “Close-up of full wine glass” to the image.
Add Alt Text with Office Scripts
The same can be done with Office Scripts in Excel online. The above Office Script code will add the title “Wine Photo” and alt text “Close-up of full wine glass” to “Picture 5” in the workbook.
Conclusions
Alt text is a very important feature for accessibility reasons. It’s a good idea to add alt text to any images or other objects in your workbook so all users can fully understand your workbook. The Alt text menu can be accessed from several different ribbon tabs or the right-click menu. All of these will have the same result! Adding alt text to a table is a bit different though and you will need to access this through a right-click table submenu. Alt text can also be added programmatically with both VBA or Office Scripts. Have you ever used the alt text feature in your Excel solutions? Let me know in the comments below!
