Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions

A caption is text that appears below an image.[a] Most captions draw attention to something in the image that is not obvious, such as its relevance to the text. A caption may be a few words or several sentences. Writing good captions takes effort; along with the lead and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative.

Not every image needs a caption; some are simply decorative. Relatively few may be genuinely self-explanatory. In addition to a caption, alt text – for visually impaired readers – should be added to informative (but not purely decorative) images;[1][2][3] see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Hazaël-Massieux D (2007-05-28). "Use the alt attribute to describe the function of each visual". W3C Quality Assurance Tips for Webmasters. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
  2. ^ "H37: Using alt attributes on img elements – Techniques for WCAG 2.0". World Wide Web Consortium. Archived from the original on 2016-05-19. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  3. ^ "H67: Using null alt text and no title attribute on img elements for images that AT should ignore – Techniques for WCAG 2.0". World Wide Web Consortium. Archived from the original on 2022-03-26. Retrieved 20 April 2014.