Generating Alt Text

The AltText.ai website lets you manually generate alt text for individual images, as well as bulk generation via CSV imports and web page scrapes.

Processing a Single Image

To generate alt text for an image:

• Go to your Images library on the website.
• Click the +Image button.
• Enter either the image URL, or click the Choose File button to upload an image from your computer.

• Click Add Image to submit.

  

Other Image Properties

Asset ID

Use this field to set your own unique identifier for the image. If left blank, a random ID will be assigned. The asset ID is useful if you plan on exporting your image data to use in your own system, and you need a way to tie the image back to your own internal identifier.

Alt Text Language

Set the language for the generated alt text. By default this value is set to your Account's default language. We support over 130 languages for alt text.

Ecommerce Images

If you are processing ecommerce images, select the Ecommerce Data checkbox to enter your product name and brand. AltText.ai will intelligently add these into your alt text.

Adding SEO Keywords

To enhance your alt text with specific keywords/phrases, or exclude specific keywords (negative keywords), select the SEO Keywords checkbox, then enter your keywords:

Using Final Pass

For a one-off website generation, select Final Pass and enter a prompt of up to 768 characters. The prompt must contain the exact {{AltText}} placeholder. A one-off prompt overrides your account default for that request; leaving it blank uses the account default when one is configured.

Example: A surfboard store could use: Rewrite in a California surfer voice without adding facts: {{AltText}}

Info

To use the same Final Pass prompt every time you generate alt text, set up the prompt in your Account: Settings page. See Final Pass for surface limits, precedence, processing order, and realistic limitations.

Bulk Importing via CSV

When you need to process a lot of images, you can import a CSV file of image URLs. Your CSV must contain specific columns for each data field you want to use. We offer both Google Sheets and sample CSV templates which contain the proper column headers, along with helpful instructions and requirements.

• Go to your Images library, then click on the Import button at the top.
• Select Upload CSV.
• Click Choose File and select your CSV with your image data.
• Enter an email address to be notified when the processing completes, then click Upload.

When you upload your CSV, you'll see a summary of the processing, and whether it was successful or not. If you have any obvious errors in your file, they will be reported on this page.

Info

CSV processing happens in the background, so please allow time for it to complete. You may not see your images added immediately, but they will usually appear within a few seconds after the upload.

Importing from Dropbox

You can select any number of image files from your Dropbox account and generate alt text for them.

• Go to your Images library, then click on the Import button at the top.
• Select Add from Dropbox.
• Click the button to connect to your Dropbox account. You will see a window where you can login and select any number of image files to process.
• After you've made your selections, you can start the alt text generation by clicking the Generate Alt Text button.

Info

Processing of Dropbox images happens in the background, so please allow time for it to complete. You may not see your images added immediately, but they will usually appear within a few seconds after starting the process.

Importing from Pinterest

Note

Pinterest's API to update alt text and other pin data is still in beta. Some features may not work as expected until they stabilize their API. We are working with them to ensure their API to update alt text works properly.

AltText.ai can bulk process entire Pinterest boards, as well as individual pins that you select. Here's how to import and process images from your Pinterest account.

• Go to your Images library, then click on the Import button at the top.
• Select Add from Pinterest.
• If you haven't already connected your Pinterest account, you'll be prompted to authorize the connection to AltText.ai.
• You'll see a list of your Pinterest boards. Use the checkboxes to select entire boards, or click the Select pins button next to each board to select individual pins from a board.
• The Pinterest options section is used to control whether data is updated on the pins in Pinterest itself. When you check the box to update alt text on pins, we will update Pinterest with the generated alt text so it also appears on the Pinterest.com website. If you do not check this box, we'll just generate alt text for your pins and it will be in your AltText.ai library (the alt text on pinterest.com will not change).

Info

Processing of Pinterest images happens in the background, so please allow time for it to complete. You may not see your images added immediately, but they will usually appear within a few seconds after starting the process.

Importing from Cloudinary

If you have existing images stored in your Cloudinary account, you can import and process them for alt text generation. This is separate from the Cloudinary integration and allows you to bulk process your existing image library.

To import from Cloudinary:

• Go to your Images library, then click on the Import button at the top.
• Select Add from Cloudinary.
• Enter the folder path in Cloudinary where your images are located.
• Choose whether to include images in subfolders.
• Configure any additional processing options such as SEO keywords or ecommerce data.

When you start the import process, it will run in the background and begin generating alt text for your Cloudinary images. Unlike the Cloudinary integration which processes new uploads automatically, this import tool is for processing your existing image collection.

Info

Cloudinary import processing happens in the background, so please allow time for it to complete. You may not see your images added immediately, but they will usually appear within a few seconds after starting the process.

Translating Your Library

If you already have alt text and need it in additional languages, you can translate your eligible image library in bulk. The active alt text on each image is used as its source text automatically.

To translate your library:

• Go to your Images library, then click on the Translate Library button.
• Choose one or more target languages for translation.
• Click Start Translation to begin the process.

There is no source-language picker and there are no date, asset-ID, or integration filters. The operation queues every image in the account that has active alt text, then skips any target-language translation that already exists.

Each missing image/target-language pair costs 1 translation credit. For example, 100 eligible images that are each missing French and Spanish require up to 200 credits. Check that you have enough credits before starting: the work is queued in the background rather than preflighted as one all-or-nothing charge, so translations that run after your balance is exhausted are not created.

The translation feature preserves the meaning and context of your existing alt text. This is useful for:

• Multilingual websites: Maintain consistent alt text across different language versions of your site
• International expansion: Quickly adapt your content for global markets
• Accessibility compliance: Ensure alt text is available in users' preferred languages

Processing and destination

Library translation happens in the background and may take several minutes for large collections. Translations created by this web workflow remain in AltText.ai; they are not automatically written back to Shopify or another integration. Shopify uses its own multi-language translation workflow.

Scraping Images from a Web Page

When you need to get alt text for all the images on a single web page, use our Scrape Page tool. This is useful if you (or your clients) have an existing website that needs alt text added, and you do not have a good way to extract the image URLs from your internal system. Page scraping also lets you enter ecommerce data and SEO keywords for the generated alt text.

To start a page scrape, go to your Images library and click on Scrape Page at the top.

Page scraping consists of two steps:

1. Enter a URL (or provide HTML) and scrape the images from the page.

   

2. Select which images to process for alt text generation.

   

Info

Page scraping does not execute javascript when detecting images. Therefore, scraping a web page which uses javascript to dynamically load images (e.g. "infinite scroll" or "lazy loading") may not result in the images being extracted.