Re: [html4all] HTML5 Alternative Text, and Authoring Tools

On 5/15/08 12:05 PM, "Dave Singer" <singer@apple.com> wrote:
> More intriguing is Microsoft Word.  I'm using 11.3.5 (Word 2004 for the Mac).

Ah, there's your problem.

> In Word documents, there is no place to enter (as far as I can tell)
> alt text, and indeed, when you save as HTML, it generates an IMG
> without an alt attribute at all.

In PC versions of Word (at least since 2003), there is a tab under Format
Picture called Web, which has one big textarea called "Alternative text".

I continue to find that many of these what-ifs are based on authoring tools
that already produce non-conformant HTML. Even other, older versions of Word
show that alt text can be handled, though the output can still accurately be
described as a dog's breakfast.

To me, Word 2004/2008 for Mac is a stellar example of why you should _not_
allow an authoring tool which doesn't accept alt text in any form to produce
valid markup by default. That would bring alt text to an entirely new level
of irrelevancy.

-
m

Received on Friday, 16 May 2008 17:37:26 UTC