Alt text for charts and graphs, including how to add it in Excel
Write chart alt text that states the main point, pair it with the data, and add it in Excel, Word, PowerPoint or a PDF. Includes examples by chart type.
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Good alt text for a chart has two parts: a short description that names the chart and states its main point, and the full data or a longer description somewhere people can read it. To add alt text to a chart in Excel, right-click the chart, choose View Alt Text (Edit Alt Text in older versions), and type the description in the Alt Text pane. The rest of this guide covers what to write, where the data should go, and how to handle charts in Word, PowerPoint and PDFs.
Why charts need two parts
WCAG 1.1.1 asks for a text alternative that serves the same purpose as the image. For a photo, one sentence usually does that. A chart is different: it might hold dozens of values, and it was put there to make a point.
- Short alt text alone can't carry 40 data points without becoming a wall of numbers.
- Data alone misses the point the author wanted readers to notice.
That's why the W3C recommends a short text alternative plus a long description for complex images. The long description helps far more people than screen reader users: people who prefer numbers to pictures, people with color blindness, and anyone reading on a small screen.
Write the short alt text
- Say what it is, including the chart type if it helps, such as "Bar chart" or "Line chart".
- Say what it measures and for which period or group.
- Give the main takeaway, the reason the chart is in the document.
- Point to the detail, such as "Data in Table 3" or "Details follow the chart."
A pattern that works for most charts: [chart type] of [what it measures], [period]: [main point]. [Where the data is.]
Keep it to a sentence or two. If you find yourself listing every value, that information belongs in a data table.
Provide the data or a long description
Choose whichever suits the chart:
- A data table right after the chart, or in an appendix, built as a real table with header cells. This is the most useful option for most charts. See accessible tables in PDFs.
- A written description in the text that covers the trend, the highest and lowest values, and any comparison the reader should make.
- A linked spreadsheet with the data, for large data sets.
In a PDF, put the long description in visible text, such as a caption, a paragraph or an appendix, and mention it in the alt text. PDF has no widely supported field for a separate long description, and visible text helps everyone.
Chart alt text examples
| Chart | Short alt text | Where the detail goes |
|---|---|---|
| Bar chart of a budget by department | "Bar chart of the 2027 general fund by department. Public safety is the largest share, at about 40%. Amounts in Table 4." | Table 4 |
| Line chart of monthly water use | "Line chart of monthly water use in 2025. Use peaks in July at about twice the January level. Data in the appendix." | Data table in an appendix |
| Pie chart with two slices | "Pie chart of students by status: 62% part-time, 38% full-time." | The alt text can be enough on its own |
| Stacked bar chart of 911 calls | "Stacked bar chart of 911 calls by type, 2022 to 2025. Medical calls rose every year; fire calls stayed about the same. Data follows." | Table after the chart |
| Scatter plot | "Scatter plot of class size against pass rate for 120 course sections, showing no clear pattern. Data in the linked spreadsheet." | Spreadsheet |
| Shaded map | "Map of the county shaded by broadband access. Northern rural areas have the lowest access. Figures by township in Table 2." | Table 2 |
| Organization chart | "Organization chart of the Public Works Department, described as a list below." | A nested list in the text |
| Flowchart | "Flowchart of the five steps to get a building permit, listed below." | A numbered list in the text |
| Infographic | "Infographic summarizing library use in 2026. Each figure is repeated in the text below." | Text below the graphic |
The numbers above are illustrations. In your documents, use the real values from the chart, and update the alt text whenever the chart's data changes.
Color, labels and contrast
Alt text isn't the only accessibility requirement for charts:
- Don't rely on color alone to tell data series apart (WCAG 1.4.1). Label lines and bars directly, or add patterns or markers.
- Make chart elements visible. Bars, lines and pie slices that people need in order to understand the chart need a contrast ratio of at least 3:1 against neighboring colors (WCAG 1.4.11).
- Make chart text readable. Titles, labels and legends need the same contrast as other text: 4.5:1 for normal text.
- Add a chart title and axis titles, so the chart explains itself to everyone.
How to add alt text to a chart in Excel
- Select the whole chart. Click the chart's outer border, not a single bar or label.
- Open the Alt Text pane. Right-click and choose View Alt Text. In some versions, the option is called Edit Alt Text.
- Type the short alt text in the box. Don't check Mark as decorative; a chart that carries information is never decorative.
- Keep the data nearby. Leave the chart's source data in a clearly labeled table on the sheet, with a header row, so people can read the values directly.
Microsoft documents View Alt Text for Microsoft 365, Office 2016 and later. In much older versions, such as Excel 2013, right-click the chart, choose Format Chart Area, select the Size & Properties icon, and expand Alt Text. Put your description in the Description box.
If you paste a chart into Word or PowerPoint, check its alt text again after pasting. Our Excel accessibility checker guide covers the rest of the workbook.
Charts in Word, PowerPoint and PDFs
Word and PowerPoint use the same Alt Text pane: right-click the chart and choose View Alt Text or Edit Alt Text. When you export to PDF with Document structure tags for accessibility turned on, the alt text carries into the PDF.
SmartArt diagrams need extra care. Microsoft documents that current versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel mark the text inside SmartArt as decoration when exporting to PDF, so screen readers skip it. Give each SmartArt graphic alt text that includes its key text, or, better, repeat an org chart or process as a list in the document.
PDFs need extra care. A chart drawn with vector graphics often arrives as dozens of separate shapes and text labels, so automatic tagging can turn one chart into many figures and a scatter of loose numbers that a screen reader reads one by one. In Acrobat Pro:
- Open the Reading Order tool (All tools > Prepare for accessibility > Fix reading order), draw a rectangle around the whole chart, and set it as a single Figure.
- Add the alt text, either in the tool or from the Tags panel (right-click the
Figuretag, choose Properties and fill in Alternate Text). - Make sure the chart's labels aren't also tagged as separate text in the reading order.
- Put the data table or long description in the text nearby.
Common mistakes
- "Chart 1" or repeating only the chart title.
- Listing every value in the alt text.
- No data anywhere that people can read.
- Legends that rely on color alone.
- Marking an informative chart as decorative to silence a checker warning.
- Stale alt text that describes last year's numbers after the chart was updated.
Fix it automatically
Includoc's AI writes a short summary for each chart with the main trend and the key values it can read, and offers a long description or data table when the values are legible. It can misread values in a dense or blurry chart, so you check the numbers against your source before you approve them. Chart-heavy pages can also go to our human-verified tier, where a specialist checks them for you.
Upload your PDF to fix this automatically
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Standards
| Standard or tool | Reference |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.1 | |
| PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1) | Clause 7.3 |
| Matterhorn Protocol | Checkpoint 13-004 |
| Acrobat rule | Figures alternate text |
| Standard or tool | Reference |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.1 | |
| PDF/UA-1 (ISO 14289-1) | Clause 7.3 |
| Standard or tool | Reference |
|---|---|
| WCAG 2.1 |
Sources
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Complex images tutorial (opens another website)
- W3C: Understanding Success Criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (opens another website)
- W3C: Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.1 Use of Color (opens another website)
- W3C: Understanding Success Criterion 1.4.11 Non-text Contrast (opens another website)
- Microsoft: Add alternative text to a shape, picture, chart, SmartArt graphic, or other object (opens another website)
- Microsoft: Accessibility best practices with Excel spreadsheets (opens another website)
- Microsoft Learn: PowerPoint PDF accessibility (opens another website) (lists SmartArt text among content exported as artifacts)
- W3C: PDF1: Applying text alternatives to images with the Alt entry in PDF documents (opens another website)
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