[thelist] ALT tags

James Aylard jaylard at encompass.net
Fri Mar 9 16:28:58 CST 2001


Rachel, et al,

> Funny, this is the first I've heard anybody suggest using alt="*" for
_all_
> unnecessary graphics. Everyone else I've run across says to use alt="" or
> alt=" ", reserving alt="*" to represent bullets.

	The W3C HTML 4.x recommendation instructs the use of an empty string (i.e.,
"") for alt text on images where no elaborative description is either
necessary or appropriate. It also warns against the use of "irrelevant
alternate text" for graphics (which might well include using the asterisk
for a bullet, but that's debatable).

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/objects.html#h-13.8

	Also, a general reminder that the HTML 4.x recommendation *requires* alt
text for all <img> and <area> elements; foregoing the alt attribute for
those elements will render the page non-compliant according to the W3C
recommendation.

James Aylard





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