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508 Tips and Tricks

November 3, 2025

Ensuring your documents are fully 508 compliant is crucial for any organization. Whether you’re looking for Section 508 training—including specialized sessions for Maryland, DC, and Virginia—or need expert remediation, it’s important to remember that even small mistakes can create major challenges during accessibility reviews. Our team specializes in helping clients avoid common pitfalls, such as missing Alt Text in Word documents, to ensure your files remain accessible and compliant.

The Simple Image Replacement Trick That Keeps Your Documents 508 Compliant

When it comes to document accessibility, small mistakes can lead to big headaches. One of the most common—and costly—issues we see during accessibility reviews is missing Alt Text after an image is replaced in Microsoft Word.
Fortunately, there’s a simple fix that not only preserves your Alt Text but also saves hours of rework and remediation costs.

The Problem: Replacing Images Can Break Accessibility

In many Word documents, accessibility professionals spend valuable time ensuring every image includes accurate Alt Text descriptions. But if someone later replaces that image—perhaps to update a logo, a chart, or a photo—Word often deletes the Alt Text entirely.

That means someone has to:

  • Reopen the accessibility pane,
  • Retype all the Alt Text, and
  • Retest the file for 508 compliance.

Multiply that across dozens of reports or templates, and the wasted time (and money) adds up quickly.

The Solution: A Quick Accessibility-Safe Replacement Method

Here’s how to replace an image in Word without losing your Alt Text, ensuring your file remains 508 compliant:

  1. Select the image you want to replace.
  2. Open the Alt Text pane:
    • Right-click the image → Edit Alt Text, or
    • Go to Picture Format → Alt Text on the ribbon.
  3. Check Mark as decorative. This tells Word to treat the image as decorative and preserves the internal accessibility tag.
  4. Replace the image using:
    • Picture Format → Change Picture → From a File
  5. Uncheck Mark as decorative. Your Alt Text field will remain intact.
  6. Review or re-enter your Alt Text description, if needed.

Why This Trick Matters

By using this method, our team has saved countless hours during document updates—especially on large Word templates that go through frequent branding or content revisions. It also helps maintain 508 compliance automatically, avoiding the frustration of re-tagging every image after a last-minute change. That means fewer accessibility errors, faster review cycles, and lower remediation costs.

Staying compliant with Section 508 doesn’t always require expensive software or complex training—sometimes, it’s about knowing the right shortcuts. This one-click technique to mark images as decorative before replacement has saved our accessibility and design teams both time and money.