How to Bulk Edit Image Alt Text in Zendesk-powered Help Centers

Alt text (alternative text) is a short description of an image in a webpage’s HTML.

Its job is to make images accessible when people use screen readers, or when images don’t load because of slow internet or broken image links.

Screen readers read alt text aloud so users understand the image’s purpose. Alt text also appears as a fallback if the image fails to load.

The Problem in Zendesk Guide

Updating alt text directly in Zendesk Guide/Knowledge Base can be slow and very time consuming when you have many images:

1. You must find articles without alt text—usually by opening them one by one.

2. In each article, you open the editor, switch to source code, locate the image, edit the alt attribute, then Apply and Save.

3. Repeat for every image across many articles.

   
   

The Faster Way: Bulk Edit Image Alt Text with Help Center Manager

Follow these steps to find missing alt text and update it across your Help Center in bulk.

Step 1: Find images with missing alt text

1. Open Help Center Manager.

2. Click Add Filter.

3. Choose Alt text → Not present.

4. You’ll now see all images in your Help Center that don’t have alt text.

   
   

Step 2: Select the images to update

1. Click Select all (or choose a subset if you prefer).

2. Click Change alt text for images.

Step 3: Choose how you want to add alt text

You have two options:

• Generate with AI

  • Check Generate with AI.

  • Enter a default alt text to use if AI generation fails.

  • (Optional) Tick Skip images that already have alt text so only empty ones are updated.

  
  

• Use the same alt text for all images

  • Enter the single alt text you want applied to every selected image.

  • (Optional) Tick Skip images that already have alt text.

Step 4: Apply changes

1. Click Change alt text.

2. Wait, this usually takes less than a minute.

3. Reload your articles to confirm: the selected images now have alt text.

What You Achieve

• Accessibility: Screen reader users understand your images.

• Resilience: If images fail to load, visitors still get the context.

• Speed: No more editing every article manually - bulk updates handle it in one go.

That’s it, quick filtering, bulk selection, and one click to generate or apply alt text across your Zendesk Help Center.

From ticket handling to help center management, Swifteq improves Zendesk capabilities with powerful tools like Help Center Manager, Help Center Translate, and Help Center Analytics, making it easy to maintain a solid knowledge base.

Book a demo today to learn how Swifteq can enhance your customer support and drive superior results at scale.

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Written by Sorin Alupoaie

Sorin Alupoaie is the founder of Swifteq, an experienced software technologist and entrepreneur, he loves shipping products that solve painful customer problems. Sorin strongly believes that any Customer Service interaction represents a huge opportunity for a business to listen and improve how they deliver value to customers.