How to Add Alternative Text on Cascade
What is Alternative Text?
Alternative text is text associated with an image that conveys the same essential information in case an
image does not load. Adding Alternative (Alt.) Text is an easy way to ensure that all of your viewers can
enjoy all of the content that you add to your Cascade webpage(s)!
Why should I add in Alternative Text?
Alt. text helps non-visual students understand elements you may have added to your page and it is
required by law that all content be accessible to all audiences.
Alt. Text is also helpful in case a computer’s browser or a device does not load all of the images on a
page.
Step 1: Locate an image that
you would like to insert into your
web page.
Once located, select the
icon.
Step 2: A pop-up box will open.
You have two options to insert
an image.
“Internal” is inserting an image
that is already uploaded on
Cascade server.
“External” is inserting an image
by URL.
Step 3A: For Internally hosted
images only!
Select the
“Browse” icon.
The browse window will open
where you can look for the
site/file that is on the Cascade
and want to link to.
Select the image you want to
host on your page.
Next, preview the image
selected. This will be shown in
the box below the “Confirm”
button
Select “Confirm”.
Step 3B: For Externally
hosted images only!
Find an image online.
Copy the image URL and
paste it into the “Image”
field on the Insert/Edit popup.
Note: make sure the URL
ends with an image
extension such as: .jpg,
.jpeg, .png, .gif, etc.
Step 4: For Internal and
External Images!
Add an alternative text to
the image by describing the
image in the “Alternative
Text” field.
Alt. texts should be short
summaries of what the
image is trying to convey on
your page.
Step 5 (Optional): Specify
the width and height of the
image.
Step 6: Select “Insert” to
add your selected image to
your page.
Step 7: Your image will be
added to the content on
your page.
Continue editing the content
as needed and select the
“Submit” button at the
bottom of the content editor
to save your changes.
More Tips on Alternative Text
To make sure the image has an appropriate alternative text, check the following:

Alternative text should be short as possible while still conveying the meaning of the image!
You do not need to list out colors or highly detailed descriptions of the image – simply
summarize the idea behind the image.

If image is conveying too much information such as newsletters then it should be a PDF or DOC
file. PDF files are required to be OCR’d and takes 3 button clicks to implement. For more
information on how to do this, visit the CSUSM Accessibility website.

Alt text should not say: “Image”, “.gif”, “.png”, “.jpeg”, list out the file name for the image, or list
out the URL for where the images was originally hosted on.