On PrestaShop, images without alt — the RGAA 1.1 non-conformity, present in 90% of e-commerce audits — almost always come from three places. Good news: none of them requires touching the theme. Everything is handled from the back office, and for large catalogues, in bulk.

Reminder: what a good alt is

The alt attribute describes the image for a screen reader. For a product: name + variant ("Voyager backpack size M, navy blue"). Never the file name, never "image of". A purely decorative image gets an empty alt. The rest of this article shows where to fill in this field in PrestaShop.

1. Product catalogue

For each product: Catalog → Products → Images tab. The "Caption" field becomes the alt attribute generated in the theme. It's empty by default. Tip: enter "product name + variant". On PrestaShop 1.7 and 8, this field is set per image, which lets you differentiate the views (front, back, detail).

2. Categories

Catalog → Categories → category image. Same logic: the "Caption" field feeds the alt. It's the most frequent oversight after a rebuild, because these images are placed once and never reopened.

3. Homepage slides

Modules → "Image slider for your homepage" → Slides. Each slide has its own alt field. Many stores leave "slide 1", "slide 2" by default: for a blind user, the homepage promo banner goes silent. Replace it with the visual's commercial message ("-30% sale on the winter collection").

Handling a large catalogue in bulk

Filling in 4,000 products by hand is impossible. Two routes without touching the theme: CSV import (Advanced Parameters → Import), which accepts an image-caption column, or generating captions from an existing field (reference + name) on the database side by a developer. Always test on an export before re-importing.

// Third-party modules

If you use a third-party slider (Smart Slider 3, etc.), the location of the alt field varies by module — but there's almost always one in each slide's editor. Look for "alt", "alternative text" or "caption" in the module's docs.

Checking it's fixed

After filling in, reload a product page and inspect the `<img>` tag: the `alt` attribute must contain your caption, not the file name. To check the whole site at once, an automated audit lists every still-silent image with its URL.

Frequently asked questions

Do thumbnails and zooms need an alt?

The PrestaShop image caption applies to all the derivatives (thumbnail, zoom, miniature) generated from the same source file. You fill it in once, it's propagated everywhere.

What to put for 100% decorative images?

A purely decorative image must have an empty alt. PrestaShop doesn't always let you force `alt=""` from the back office; in practice, these visuals often come from the theme (backgrounds, separators) and are handled in the template.

Can AI generate the alts for me?

To rough out a large catalogue, yes, provided you proofread: an auto-generated description is better than nothing, but it gets variants and brands wrong. The field must stay accurate, not just filled.

List every image without alt on your PrestaShop store, with its URL:

→ Run an audit