Automatically pull alt text from media library

[betterts]

Hi there, I’ve seen this question off and on since 2016 and saw it was added to an internal feature request. Great. But since there’s no official way to add a +1 to requested features, I wanted to start a new topic for it.

ADA compliance has become more and more important over the last few years, and for some sites, there are so many images on so many pages that adding alt text by loading cornerstone and clicking each individual image on each individual page is terribly inefficient. In the media library, you can mass edit all images at once, including images used on many pages. It’s not a flashy feature but I hope themeco will consider not only the content editors out there who struggle to bring large sites into compliance but also those who benefit from better accessibility, who will be helped by making accessibility easier to implement. Thank you!

[ruenel]

Hello @betterts,

Thanks for writing in! Please understand that the mass edits of the images will only affect the images which have been inserted using the default WordPress editor, those images that has been inserted in the WordPress gallery shortcode or images that were inserted inside the text element’s media insert button.

The alt text for images inserted in Cornerstone is custom which would really require you to insert the alt text while you are setting the image element. Whether it is the classic image element or the v2 image element, you really have to insert the custom alt text for the image.

You cannot do mass edit or change the alt text via the media library once you have finished editing the page. What you need it to edit the page again and change the alt text in the image element instead.

Hope this explains it briefly.