How can I see the alt text entered for images when in student view?

Question

Hi - I am working on checking courses created by peers for accessibility. When I hover over images, no alt text appears. I have checked this in courses I know alt text exists and cannot find a way to access the alt text without a screen reader extension. Is alt text only avaible to screen readers, or is there a way to find it within Canvas?

ryan_corris · Accepted Answer

Hey @Katiesap!

Great question!  Check out the Community guide called How do I manage alt text and display options for images embedded in the Rich Content Editor?

In the very beginning of the guide it states: Alt text is read by screen readers, and it displays when an embedded image cannot display.

Hopefully this helps!

Chris · Accepted Answer

Hi @Katiesap,

In addition to the option @ryan_corris provided about seeing alt-text in the RCE (which would work while editing things), there are a couple other ways to view alt text.  One would be to right click an image and select the "inspect" option.  This will open up a developer mode pane where you can see the HTML of the image, including the alt text.  If that's a bit too complex, there are also browser extensions that would reveal alt text, and perhaps other accessibility info.  I personally use the WAVE extension which I did confirm will show image alt text when the extension is turned on.  Either of these options should work in student view.

I hope this extra info might be helpful too.

-Chris