Important
For public agencies this is an accessibility obligation, not a nicety. Alt text is the most-requested accessibility feature from our government customers and the one least likely to get filled in by hand — which is exactly why it’s automatic.
How it works
- Upload an image. The upload itself is unchanged.
- If the alt text field is empty, CivAll generates a description in the background. The field shows a quiet generating… state — you can keep writing your post while it works.
- The description drops into the alt text field, marked with a small AI-generated indicator.
- Edit it, keep it, or clear it. It’s an ordinary editable field from that point on. To get a fresh description, clear the field and click Generate alt text.
What it will and won’t touch
- Your words are never overwritten. Generation only ever fills an empty field. An image that already carries alt text — from a cloned post, or because you started typing — is left alone.
- One description per image, applied to every network that supports alt text and carries that image. You can still override any single network’s copy.
- It never blocks you. If generation is slow or fails, the field simply stays empty with a short note and a Generate alt text link to try again. Publishing is never held up, and a missing description never blocks a post.
- Descriptions are written in English and kept to under 100 characters — short, literal, and comfortably inside every network’s limit.
Where alt text is supported
Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Threads all carry alt text. YouTube, TikTok, and Nextdoor have no alt text field, so nothing is generated for them. Networks differ in how much they’ll accept — X allows 1,000 characters, Bluesky 2,000, and LinkedIn 300, while Facebook, Instagram, and Threads recommend around 100 — and the composer warns you if an edit runs long for a given network.
Tip
Worth a read before you accept it. A generated description says what’s visible; it can’t know that the person at the podium is your mayor, or that the flyer is for Tuesday’s hearing. A few seconds of editing usually makes it markedly more useful.
If you crop an image, the existing alt text stays with the new version rather than being silently rewritten — if the crop changed what the picture shows, clear the field and click Generate alt text. Administrators can turn automatic generation off for the whole organization; the manual field keeps working exactly as before.