ALT Attribute | alt Property

Internet Development Index

Sets or retrieves a text alternative to the graphic.

What's New for Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6

This property now applies to the object object.

Syntax

HTML<ELEMENT ALT = sTxt... >
Scriptingobject.alt [ = sTxt ]

Possible Values

sTxtString that specifies or receives the text to display as an alternative to the graphic.

The property is read/write. The property has no default value.

Expressions can be used in place of the preceding value(s), as of Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5. For more information, see About Dynamic Properties.

Remarks

The text is used to replace the graphic for text-only browsers and to display in the window before the graphic has loaded. The text also acts as a ToolTip if the TITLE attribute is not set when the user hovers the mouse over the graphic.

Alternate text should be provided whenever the graphic is not rendered. Alternate text is mandatory for Level 0 documents.

Example

This example uses the ALT attribute to indicate that the icon displayed denotes a read/write property.

<IMG SRC="http://example.microsoft.com/rw.gif" ALT="Read/Write Property">

Standards Information

This property is defined in HTML 3.2 Non-Microsoft link and is defined in World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Non-Microsoft link.

Applies To

OBJECT, APPLET, AREA, INPUT, INPUT type=image, IMG