Assigning Alternate Text to Images and Image Maps in FrameMaker
This section provides information about how to create accessible images and image maps in your generated output by assigning alternate text to images.
Image and Image Map Alternate Text in FrameMaker
One of the largest accessibility challenges with online content today is the lack of alternative text for images and image maps. Sight-impaired users often use screen readers or refreshable Braille devices to read online content. However, when these assistive technologies come across images or image maps without alternative text, also known as alternate text, they are unable to provide users with information about the image or image map and its meaning.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines require that alternate text be provided for all images and image maps in online content. The alternate text is an image label that describes the image or each area of the image map. Online content should display alternate text for images and image maps when users perform the following actions:
  • The user hovers the mouse pointer over an image or section of an image map.
  • The user browser has been configured to disable display of images and image maps.
  • The user browser is a text-only browser such as Lynx.
  • The user uses assistive technology such as a screen reader.
The alternate text you assign to an image or sections of an image map should be as accurate and as succinct as possible and provide users with a brief description of the image and how the image relates to the page they are viewing. Make sure that your alternate text conveys all of the important information related to the image or image map section, but do not burden users with excessively long alternative text. Screen readers or refreshable Braille devices always read the alternative text, so if your page has several images or complex image maps with long descriptions, it can take a long time for the assistive devices to read image-heavy pages with long descriptions. If you need to provide a description of the image or image map section that is more than a few words or a few short sentences, you should provide a brief alternate text description of the image or image map section and then assign a longer description the image using either the longdesc attribute or a description. Once you specify a long description using the longdesc attribute, you can also optionally display a D link next to the image. For more information about assigning long descriptions to images, see Assigning Long Descriptions to Images in FrameMaker.
Assigning Alternate Text to Images in FrameMaker
To assign alternate text to an image, your Stationery and template must have the ImageAltText marker type configured. Your output format must also support this feature.
The following procedure provides an example of how to assign alternate text to images in the most current version of FrameMaker. The Object Attribute method can be used with newer versions of FrameMaker.
To assign alternate text to an image in an Adobe FrameMaker source document using object attributes
  1. In your Adobe FrameMaker source document, locate the anchored frame for the image to which you want to assign alternate text.
  2. In the anchored frame that contains the image to which you want to assign alternate text, and complete the following:
    1. Select the anchored frame that contains the image to which you want to assign an alternate name.
    2. On the Graphics menu, click Object Properties.
    3. Click Object Attributes.
    4. In the New or Changed Attribute area, in the Name field, type ImageAltText.
    5. In the Definition field, type the alternate text you want to assign to the image. Your text cannot exceed 255 characters.
    6. Click Add.
    7. Click Set.
    8. Click Set again to close the window.
To assign alternate text to an image in an Adobe FrameMaker source document
  1. In your Adobe FrameMaker source document, locate the anchored frame for the image to which you want to assign alternate text.
  2. In the anchored frame that contains the image to which you want to assign alternate text, insert a text frame by completing the following steps:
    1. On the Graphics menu, click Tools to display the graphic tools palette.
    2. Click the Text Frame icon.
    3. Drag the cursor over the portion of the image where you want to insert the text frame that will contain the ImageAltText marker.
    4. In the Create New Text Frame window, in the Number field, type 1, and then click Set.
    5. Click outside the image, and then insert your cursor in the text frame.
  3. On the Special menu, click Marker.
  4. In the Marker Type field, select ImageAltText from the drop-down list.
  5. If the ImageAltText marker type is not on the list, check with the Stationery designer to obtain the name of the marker type the Stationery designer created to support this functionality and then use the marker type specified by the Stationery designer. For more information, refer to Implementing Online Features in FrameMaker.
  6. In the Marker Text field, type the alternate text you want to assign to the image.
  7. Click New Marker.
  8. Save your Adobe FrameMaker source document.
  9. Generate output for your project. For more information, see Generating Output.
  10. Verify ePublisher assigned the alternate text you specified to the image when it generated output by completing the following steps:
    1. On the View menu, click Output Directory.
    2. In the TargetName folder, open the page that has the image to which you assigned alternate text in Notepad, where TargetName is the name of your target.
    3. Verify that the alternate text you specified is included in the alt tag for the image.
Assigning Alternate Text to Image Maps in FrameMaker
To assign alternate text to an image, your Stationery and template must have the ImageAreaAltText marker type configured. Your output format must also support this feature.
The following procedure provides an example of how to assign alternate text to an image map in Adobe FrameMaker source documents using unstructured Adobe FrameMaker 7.2. Steps for assigning alternate text to an image map in Adobe FrameMaker may be different in other versions of Adobe FrameMaker.
To assign alternate text for an image map in an Adobe FrameMaker source document
  1. In your Adobe FrameMaker source document, locate the anchored frame for the image map to which you want to assign alternate text.
  2. In the anchored frame that contains the image map to which you want to assign alternate text, complete the following steps for each area of an image map:
    1. Insert your cursor into the text frame that defines a clickable region on the image map.
    2. On the Special menu, click Marker.
    3. In the Marker Type field, select ImageAreaAltText from the drop-down list.
    4. If the ImageAreaAltText marker type is not on the list, check with the Stationery designer to obtain the name of the marker type the Stationery designer created to support this functionality and then use the marker type specified by the Stationery designer. For more information, refer to Implementing Online Features in FrameMaker.
    5. In the Marker Text field, type the alternate text you want to assign to the image map area.
    6. Click New Marker.
  3. Save your Adobe FrameMaker source document.
  4. Generate output for your project. For more information, see Generating Output.
  5. Verify ePublisher assigned the alternate text you specified to each area of the image map when it generated output by completing the following steps:
    1. On the View menu, click Output Directory.
    2. In the TargetName folder, open the page that has the image map to which you assigned alternate text in Notepad, where TargetName is the name of your target.
    3. Verify that the alternate text you specified is included in the alt tag for each area of the image map.
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Last modified date: 01/28/2026