How to add missing alt text and fix heading order in Canvas
Short answer: in Canvas, edit a page and click the Accessibility Checker icon in the editor, and fix what it lists. It checks one page at a time, unless your school has turned on the course-wide Accessibility page. Or open Course++ in your course and type: “Read every page in Unit 3 and add alt text to images that have none.”
The problem
You have 40 pages and no idea which pictures have descriptions.
Alt text is the short description a screen reader reads aloud for an image. The checker in the editor only looks at the page you have open. Unless your school has turned on Canvas’s course-wide checker, you open every page to find the gaps.
one page at a timepage by page
The fix
Course++ reads the pages and fixes what it finds.
Course++ has no scanner. It reads the pages you point it at, writes a short description for each image that lacks one, and fixes heading levels. Read what it writes, because you know the images best.
one requestpages read for you
Prompts you can copy
Open your Canvas course, open Course++ beside it, and paste one of these. Change the names and numbers to match your course.
Read every page in Unit 3 and list the images that have no alt text. Do not change anything yet.
A check first. It only reads.Add alt text to the images on the Renaissance painters page. Keep each description under 125 characters and say what the image shows.
One page, with a length limit.On every page in this course, fix heading order so no page skips from Heading 2 to Heading 4. Do not change the wording.
Course-wide heading cleanup.Find links on the Unit 3 pages that say only “click here” and rewrite them to describe where they go.
Link text is read aloud too.
How to fix alt text and headings in Canvas by hand
- Open the page and click Edit.
- In the editor, click the Accessibility Checker icon.
- Read the issue in the sidebar, make the fix it asks for, and click Apply. Use Next to move to the next issue.
- To fix an image yourself, click it, click Options, and type a description in Alt Text. If it is only decoration, choose Decorative Image. Click Done.
- For headings, select the text, open the Paragraph drop-down, and pick a heading. Canvas uses the page title as Heading 1, so start at Heading 2.
- Click Save, and repeat on the next page.
Good to know
- Good alt text says what the image is for. A decorative border gets none; a chart gets its main point.
- No tool guarantees accessibility. Canvas’s checker and Course++ both catch common problems only. They do not make a course compliant, and PDFs and videos need their own checks.
- Want the pages to match, too? See how to give every page the same design.
Questions teachers ask
How do I add alt text to an image in Canvas?
Edit the page, click the image, click Options, and type a description in the Alt Text field. If the image is only decoration, choose Decorative Image instead. Then click Done and save the page.
Does Canvas check accessibility for the whole course?
It can, if your school has turned it on. Look for Accessibility in Course Navigation and click Scan Course to check pages and assignments. Otherwise, the checker in the editor reviews one page at a time.
Can Course++ find pages with missing alt text?
Course++ has no scanner, but it can read the pages you name and add or fix alt text and heading levels on what it finds. It does not certify that a page meets any standard.
What is Course++?
A browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that adds an AI assistant to Canvas. You type what you want, and it makes the change in the course you have open, using your own Canvas account, so it can only do what you can do.
250 FREE credits to try it. No credit card.
Canvas steps checked against Instructure’s own Canvas guides in October 2026. Canvas changes its screens from time to time, and schools turn features on and off, so a button may be named a little differently in yours.