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Inline Images and ALT text

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From: Janet Sylvia
Date: Jan 13, 2009 2:10PM

Greetings,

One of our web designers asked the following question about inline images and ALT text. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

"It seems that if an image is placed within a paragraph of text and aligned so that the text wraps around it, the image's alt text will interrupt the text flow when read by a screen-reader. This can be a bigger problem when adding multiple images to a page and moving them to accommodate the visual design.

Is there a standard for embedding images in paragraphs? For instance, only embed images before/after sentences, with contextual clues, etc.

Also, if the image is described in the adjacent text, would the ALT text for the image be null?

Has this situation been considered by other organizations and what would be the solution to accommodate both visual and aural design?"

Thanks for your help.


Janet Sylvia
University of Georgia