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Images of Text (Limited):
Understanding SC 1.4.5

1.4.5 Images of Text (Limited): When [begin change]the accessibility supported technologies being used can[end change] achieve the visual presentation, text is used to convey information rather than images of text [begin change]except for the following:[end change][begin delete]the image of the text can be visually customized to the user's requirements.[end delete] (Level AA)

[begin add]

  • Customizable: The image of text can be visuallycustomized to the user's requirements;

  • Essential: A particular presentation of text is essential to the information being conveyed.

[end add]
[begin add]

Note: Logotypes (text that is part of a logo or brand name) are considered essential.

[end add]

Intent of this Success Criterion

The intent of this success criterion is to encourage authors who are using technologies that are capable of achieving a specific visual presentation to enable people who require a particular visual presentation of text to be able to adjust the text presentation as required. This includes people who require the text in a particular font size, foreground and background color, font family, line spacing or alignment.

If an author can use text to achieve the same visual effect, he or she should present the information as text rather than using an image. If for any reason, the author cannot format the text to get the same effect, the effect won't be reliably presented on the commonly available user agents, or using a technology to meet this criterion would interfere with meeting other criterion such as 1.4.4, then an image of text can be used. [begin add]This includes instances where a particular presentation of text is essential to the information being conveyed, such as type samples, logotypes, brand names, etc. [end add]Images of text can also be used where it is possible for users to customize the image of text to match their requirements.

Techniques for satisfying this success criterion are the same as those for Success Criterion 1.4.9, except that they only need to apply if the visual presentation can be achieved with the technologies that the author is using. For success criterion 1.4.9, the sufficient techniques would be applied only when the user can customize the output.

Specific Benefits of Success Criterion 1.4.5:

  • People with low vision (who may have trouble reading the text with the authored font family, size and/or color).

  • People with visual tracking problems (who may have trouble reading the text with the authored line spacing and/or alignment).

Examples of Success Criterion 1.4.5

Related Resources

Resources are for information purposes only, no endorsement implied.

Techniques and Failures for Success Criterion 1.4.5 [Images of Text (Limited)]

Each numbered item in this section represents a technique or combination of techniques that the WCAG Working Group deems sufficient for meeting this success criterion. The techniques listed only satisfy the success criterion if all of the WCAG 2.0 conformance requirements have been met.

Sufficient Techniques

  1. Using CSS to control visual presentation of text (future link)

  2. Providing controls on the Web page that change the visual presentation of text (future link)

  3. G140: Separating information and structure from presentation so that Web pages can be presented different ways without losing information OR Separating information and structure from presentation to enable modification of presentation without altering content (future link)

Additional Techniques (Advisory)

Although not required for conformance, the following additional techniques should be considered in order to make content more accessible. Not all techniques can be used or would be effective in all situations.

General techniques for non-text content

  1. Identifying informative non-text content (future link)

CSS Techniques

  1. C12: Using percent for font sizes (CSS)

  2. C13: Using named font sizes (CSS)

  3. C14: Using em units for font sizes (CSS)

  4. C8: Using CSS letter-spacing to control spacing within a word (CSS)

  5. C6: Positioning content based on structural markup (CSS)

  6. Avoid applying text styling to text characters within a word (future link)

  7. Changing line height (future link)

  8. Specifying the font family (future link)

  9. Changing letter-spacing (future link)

  10. Aligning text (future link)

  11. Changing the case of text (future link)

  12. Indenting paragraphs (future link)

  13. Layering text over images (future link)

  14. Italicizing text (future link)

  15. Increasing font weight of text (future link)

  16. Styling the first line of a block of text (future link)

  17. Styling the first letter of a block of text (future link)

  18. Adding a drop-shadow to text (future link)

Failures

The following are common mistakes that are considered failures of Success Criterion 1.4.5 by the WCAG Working Group.

(No failures currently documented)

This Web page is part of Understanding WCAG 2.0: A guide to understanding and implementing WCAG 2.0. The entire document is also available as a single HTML file. See the Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents for an explanation of how this document fits in with other Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 documents.

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