Using the LongDesc Tag

In this demonstration you will see how to add a LONGDESC HTML tag to an image.  When graphics convey too much information to be included in ALT text this is one way to provide a text description.  No one else can see a LONGDESC tag, but a user with a screen reader will hear the link to the text description and be able to follow it.
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First, click anywhere on the image to select it.
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Next, click on the HTML tab at the bottom of the FrontPage window.
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The HTML for the image will be highlighted.
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Click just after the IMG tag which begins the image to insert the cursor.
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Next you would type longdesc="chart.htm".  On your own web pages you would replace chart.htm with the name of the page you created that has a text description of the image.
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Click the Normal tab when finished.
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In this example, the page with the text description has already been created.  If necessary, you would create a new page to contain the text description.  We will open chart.htm to view the text description of this bar graph.
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Be sure to include a link back to the regular page.  We will place a simple Back to previous page link here.
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After highlighting the text, click the Hyperlink button.
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Select the first page (longdesc.htm in this case) to go back to and then click OK.
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Adding longdesc in HTML is one way to provide a longer text description of an image.  However, it does require that you are comfortable editing HTML.  Additionally, some screen readers do not understand this HTML tag.  For another way to accomplish a longer text description, see our Viewlet on D links. __________________________________________________________

Copyright 2003, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, ITS Support Center

ITS Support Center, 103 Wing Technology Center, 785-8774, itssupport@uwlax.edu