Product Gallery Images – Alt Text no longer appears under images

Hi there!

It seems like you’re referring to the product image caption. By default, the caption appears below the image in white when the image is enlarged.

The alt text is added for the following reasons:

• Accessibility: Helps screen readers describe images to visually impaired users.
• SEO: Enhances search engine rankings by providing context about the image.
• Image Fallback: Displays text if the image fails to load.

If you’d like to show text below the image, please add a caption for each product image, as shown in this screenshot: Screenshot.

I hope this helps!

I use Storefront theme and I’ve never previously added a caption for my additional product gallery images. It’s always been Alt Text, which is now required for accessibility. There’s never been an issue before by doing it that way, until now. The Alt Text had always appeared under the images.

Why has it changed so that it no longer appears? I can do the caption, if that’s what I need to do going forward. However, that doesn’t solve the problem for me for all my hundreds of prior uploaded images where the Alt Text had always displayed. I guess I’ll have to add captions to all of those too, even though they’re already have Alt Text?

It sounds like you’re saying the Alt Text (from now on) will only appear if the image fails to load. Is that correct?

Also, I see that someone else had recently posted about the same issue happening. And that person uses Captions and says that it is also no longer showing. I’ll try your suggestion though and will update this. Thank you.

Adding Captions does work. I see now that I will need to go back through all my images and add Captions in addition to the Alt Text that was previously sufficient.

Note, however, that Captions are not working on iPhone Safari or Chrome browsers. So, there’s that. This seems to be a recent glitch following the update.

Can you please let me know if that suspicion can be verified or if, going forward, this will be the expected behavior of Alt Text and Captions?

Hi @jwest444 ,

Thanks for reaching out! Let me clarify how alt text works:

Alt text is added via the HTML alt attribute and does not display directly on a website. It is visible only when an image fails to load or when accessed by assistive technologies like screen readers. This behavior is determined by HTML standards and isn’t influenced by the theme.

For captions, however, these should display in the lightbox popup for product gallery images.

I checked the issue on Chrome with the default woocommerce setup, and the caption text is showing correctly, as seen in the screenshot below:

On the other hand, when testing on Safari for iPhone, the caption does not appear. Could you confirm if this issue started after a recent update? Was it working correctly in previous versions?

Please check and let me know so we can assist further.

Thank you Jonayed, based on your response to another post with the same issue that I’m having, I realize now that it is the Title that is no longer appearing below the lightbox popup. After I added captions, I see that it works.

It must have been the Title that I used to see there before because I never entered Captions. Only the Title and Alt Text.

Also, I should have been more clear: the Captions I’ve added does not display on iPhone on Chrome browser and also not on Safari on iPhone. I only know that Title used to display on both phone browsers in previous versions. I don’t know whether Caption used to ever display on those phone browsers, because I never used Caption.

I’ll just surrender to the fact that I’ll have to go back and add Captions to hundreds of images, if you’re telling me that the change is permanent – that the Title is no longer going to be displayed.

• This reply was modified 1 day, 17 hours ago by jwest444.

Based on your response to a similar post, I understand that from now on only Caption will show. Can you still please look into why the Captions won’t display on iPhone Chrome/Safari? That’s the only thing I need resolved. Thank you.