Adding Alt Text in MS Office Programs

Regardless of which MS Office program you are using, adding alt text involves the same steps. However, recent updates to MS Office have resulted in some changes to how alt text is provided for an image. Pay attention to which version of Office you are using, as some steps may be different.

Office 2013/2016 for PCs

Right click on the image.
Select ‘Format Picture’.
Click on ‘Alt-text’ and type a description of the image.
Enter your alt text into the description field, not the title.

screen cast of adding alt text in Word

Office 365 for PC and Macs

Right-click the object and select 'Edit Alt Text'.
Type your alt text into the description field. If the image is purely decorative, you can check 'Mark as decorative' instead.

screen cast demonstrating steps to add alt text in Office 365

Other Versions of Office

Are you using a different version of Office? Check out Microsoft's set of instructions for adding alt text (opens new tab) in various versions of their products.

Demos

Word Images (1 min 30 sec)

A short video showing how to add alt text to images in Word.

Word Images

Exploration