Alternate Text

Effective Descriptions and Complex Images

A picture can be worth a thousand words, but we don't always have time or space for that level of detail as an alternate description. Depending on the content in the picture, you might need to provide an extended description in the main narrative text or provide it in a supplemental document.

Remember, you can describe images in MS Word with the Alternative Text tool from the "Format Picture" menu. 

Consider strategies for describing the following content.

Sample Image 1

Here is the paragraph that accompanied the following image:

"This sequence of images from the Nasa Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Sun from its surface to its upper atmosphere all taken at about the same time (Oct. 27, 2017). The first shows the surface of the sun in filtered white light; the other seven images were taken in different wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light. Note that each wavelength reveals somewhat different features. They are shown in order of temperature, from the first one at about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius) on the surface, out to about 10 million degrees in the upper atmosphere.

Yes, the sun’s outer atmosphere is much, much hotter than the surface. Scientists are getting closer to solving the processes that generate this phenomenon."

Source: sdomission.tumblr.com

The image to the left requires a longer description in the body text (the text surrounding the image) and a simple alt text. 

For this image, the following alternate description is "several images of the sun representing different temperatures."

The following image might have several different descriptions depending on the context. If you're curious the alt text to the image of the left is "dog's reaction to eating a lemon."