Best Practices for Images in Enterprise Documents include using meaningful alt text, ensuring PDF UA compliance, optimizing for automation, and designing for accessibility across all formats.
Images can improve the design and clarity of transactional enterprise documents. Used correctly, images support branding, help readers understand content, and improve usability across print and digital channels. However, poor image use creates serious problems that affect accessibility, performance, and compliance.
In this blog, we explain how to use images the right way. You will learn some practical best practices for Accessibility, Compliance, Printing, Archiving, File Size, and Document Functionality. We will cover what to do, what to avoid, and how to make sure your images meet modern document and accessibility standards such as PDF UA, WCAG, Section 508, AODA, and the ADA. Each of these best practices touches on topics that could fill an entire training course. This article offers a high-level summary to help teams understand and apply the core principles of accessible image use in enterprise documents.
Why Images Matter in Enterprise and Transactional Documents
Transactional Documents such as bills, statements, and policy notices carry important information. Organizations often produce these documents in large volumes and must follow strict rules for compliance and accessibility. At the same time, they must support the following:
- Fast and accurate printing
- Long term digital archiving
- Secure handling of customer data
- Reliable document automation
- A range of reading tools and screen sizes
In these environments, image use must be intentional, and standards based. Poor image choices can break accessibility, reduce print quality, increase costs, and complicate file management across your enterprise document systems.
Best Practice 1: Always Use Alt Text for Images
Alt text (short for Alternative Text) is a short description that explains the purpose of an image. It helps users who rely on screen readers understand visual content. Every meaningful image in a tagged PDF must include alt text to meet accessibility and compliance standards.
This guideline does not replace formal accessibility training. Each topic here offers room for deeper exploration, and teams involved in document composition or remediation should pursue additional education as needed.
Be concise and purposeful:
Keep descriptions brief, ideally under 125 characters. Then, focus on what the image communicates in the context of the document.
Avoid redundant phrases:
Do not start with “image of” or “photo of.” Simply describe the content, such as “Bar chart showing sales growth” or “Aerial map with highlighted traffic zones.”
Use clear, descriptive language:
Be specific. Say “XYZ company logo” for a logo, “line graph” for a graph, or “pictogram showing water usage” for a diagram.
Include meaning, not just appearance:
For data visuals, include trends or key values.
Example: “Bar chart shows steady growth from 2011 to 2021 ending at 1.3 million.”
Do not rely on color:
Describe content in words, not color cues.
Example: “Fifteen icons mark roadblocks near 15th Avenue and Main Street” instead of “Red icons indicate roadblocks.”
Respect cognitive load:
Alt text should not overwhelm the user with excessive detail. Avoid cognitive clutter. The goal is to provide an equivalent experience, not a more complicated one.
Use punctuation for clarity:
Include periods and commas to help screen readers pause correctly. Avoid excessive symbols or formatting.
Avoid titles, figure numbers, and links:
Do not repeat titles or captions the screen reader already announces. Never include URLs or navigation cues in alt text.
For images of text:
Avoid using them when possible. If used, the alt text must include the exact same wording shown in the image.
For decorative images:
Use the artifact tag so screen readers skip them. Do not tag decorative images or apply empty alt text.
For functional images:
Describe the image based on what it does.
Example: “Search icon” for a static image.
Example: “Contact Us button” for a button that links to a contact page.
For complex images:
Summarize the key data or trend. Provide further detail in surrounding text or a linked description if needed.
Example: “Bar chart shows traffic increases Thursday and Friday between five and six p.m.”
Note: Automated PDF accessibility tools can only verify that alt text exists. They cannot determine whether it accurately describes the image. Authors must ensure alt text is relevant, meaningful, and accurate.
Warning: Alt text must not be misused. It is not a space for keywords, SEO stuffing, or metadata. There have been cases where authors used alt text to manipulate search engines instead of describing the image. This practice creates barriers for users and fails compliance standards.
Best Practice 2: Tag Images According to PDF UA Standards
Accessible PDFs must follow specific tagging and structure rules. These are defined by ISO 14289, also known as PDF UA. There are two versions of this standard that treat image tagging differently.
PDF UA 1 defines that authors must tag all meaningful images using the Figure tag. Authors should mark decorative images as artifacts so screen readers skip them.
PDF UA 2 is more flexible. It requires authors to tag images based on what the image means, not just how it is stored in the PDF. For example:
- If the image is part of a sentence, tag it with a Span and include ActualText.
- If the image functions as a heading, tag it with the correct heading level.
- If the image represents a list bullet, tag it as a Label.
- If the image contains a math formula, tag it as a Formula.
Tagging based on meaning makes the reading experience clearer for screen reader users and improves compliance with the latest standards.
Best Practice 3: Avoid Using Images of Text
Always use real, live text when you are communicating important content. Text inside images cannot be read by screen readers, cannot be selected or copied, and often looks blurry when printed.
The W3C’s PDF 1 technique says:
“PDFs should be created with actual text, not raster images of text, unless the image of text is essential.”
Using text in images creates the following issues:
- The content cannot be searched
- The content cannot be tagged semantically
- Assistive technology will skip or misread it
- Users cannot activate links or navigate easily
- You may fail compliance with WCAG and PDF UA
If you must use an image that includes text, the alt text must contain the exact same words shown in the image. But wherever possible, use styled live text instead of images.
Best Practice 4: Avoid Full Page Images in Document Templates
In some cases, document designers try to recreate a paper form by placing a full-page image behind all the text. This is often done to match a brand layout or legacy design.
This approach introduces major problems:
- File size increases significantly and slows down performance
- Color profiles do not print accurately
- Reading order becomes difficult to manage
- Screen readers cannot interpret embedded content properly
- Alt text can only describe the image in one place
- Updates to layout require editing the entire image
If all you need is a logo or graphic accent, place it in a separate position such as a corner. Use layout containers, tables, and style rules to create structured templates. Never rely on a background image for layout.
Best Practice 5: Optimize Images for Printing and File Size
Images should never dominate the size or performance of a document. When used correctly, images support print quality and design without slowing down production systems.
Here are tips for optimizing images:
- Use vector formats for logos and simple graphics
- Use high resolution raster images only when needed
- Compress images to reduce file size without losing clarity
- Avoid repeating the same large image on every page
- Use color profiles that match your print workflows
Efficient image use will improve print speed, storage performance, and overall system reliability in enterprise settings.
Best Practice 6: Do Not Use Images to Replace Text
Use images to support content, not to carry the message. People often rely on documents to make important life decisions. When you place key information inside an image, you risk making that content inaccessible. Keep essential details in live text so everyone can access and act on the information they need.
Best Practice 7: Plan for Automation and Remediation
Documents created at high-volumes are typically generated automatically. That means all content, including images, needs to work within a structured layout that supports tagging and accessibility.
Use document automation tools that:
- Apply alt text and tagging automatically
- Integrate image use with templates and style rules
- Support real-time validation against PDF UA and WCAG
- Allow accessibility to be built into the workflow
Automation cannot make the nuanced, human-level decisions required to understand what a complex image is trying to communicate. Charts with irregular patterns or no clear trend are difficult to describe even for a person, and much harder to explain with an algorithm. This type of complex information should be described in the text of the document. Do not rely on the chart or its alt text alone to convey the message.
This approach supports scalable remediation and faster compliance checks using PDF accessibility tools. As technology evolves, more advanced alt text generation may become possible within automated workflows.
In Conclusion
Images can improve enterprise documents, but only when they are used with accessibility and compliance in mind. In high volume environments, it is easy for automation to apply generic alt text or miss structural tagging entirely, especially when image content varies or becomes complex. This leads to documents that technically meet standards but fail to deliver an accessible experience.
The challenge is not just tagging images, but making sure they support meaning, clarity, and usability for all users. That includes choosing the right image types, placing meaningful descriptions in the document body, and avoiding practices that cannot scale across automated workflows.
ADEPT UA solves this by applying accessibility tagging after composition using intelligent rule based processing to handle real world document output. It does not require reauthoring or template changes, and it scales to handle complex documents with consistency. ADEPT UA ensures that your Transactional Documents and Enterprise Documents are tagged for structure, meaning, and readability, not just compliance.
Build documents that communicate clearly and accessibly. Every time. At scale.
