Alt text & captions on images added by URL

Help & Questions Rebus Press Support
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I usually add images to chapters by downloading them from sites like flickr or Wikimedia Commons and then uploading to the media library. As a test I tried adding through just inserting a URL from flickr, which worked great except that it doesn’t seem to give me the option of adding alternative text or a caption. It’s just the image on the page and it’s not clear where it’s from (though you can click on it and it goes back to the original).

I’m guessing that one can only add alt text and captions to images in the library, because adding by URL is basically like just adding a link…is that correct? I tried doing a couple of web searches to find the answer but couldn’t find anything that talked about this specifically.

Just wanted to double check, because if I can’t add alt text or captions I won’t be adding images by URL!

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Hi Christina, thanks for your question. I could replicate the behaviour as you described. It looks like the only way to add alt. text, captions, and media attributions to images in Pressbooks is if you upload it from a file. The insert image by URL creates a hotlink to the image, and is similar to how embedded videos work (they are not copied over to Pressbooks but use the native platform’s player to run). So probably not the best route, despite being convenient, for you.

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Thanks so much for checking, Apurva! Makes sense. I will continue using the process of uploading to the media library.

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