Good to hear from you again; thanks for the kind words.
I want to make sure I understand your question. You wrote “I need to bulk add ALT tags to all the generated thumbnails.” I had a look at the example page you gave and it looks like the alt="" attributes in the gallery items are empty; is that what you want to update, i.e., the ALT Text values associated with each item?
What do you want to put in the ALT Text values? You mentioned the “ATT Category” – do you want to add the assigned terms for each item to the value?
ALT Text values are stored in the database and, if present, are copied into the IMG tags for each thumbnail item. If you want to change the values in the database, you can use MLA’s Bulk Edit feature or define an IPTC/EXIF mapping rule to do the job.
You wrote “ I can go into the library, select the ATT Category. When I click the ‘Bulk Select’ button and select all the files in the entire category, the only option I have is ‘delete.’ ” It looks like you are trying to use the WordPress Media/Library screen, not the MLA Media/Assistant screen, to accomplish your task. That won’t work.
To use MLA for this task you can adapt the instructions in this earlier topic:
Bulk replace a word in media titles
That topic covers changing the Title field, but you can use the same steps to update the ALT Text field. I will leave this topic unresolved for now in case I have not understood your goal. Let me know if you have any problems or further questions regarding the process described in the earlier topic.
Thanx, I’ll try it. I have auto generated thumbnails in three different areas of the web site.
Hey David,
I went into the MLA library and all the thumbnails do show ALT text. For some reason, the Toast SEO plugin is saying that the thumbnails do not show an ALT tag.
Weird.
Nick
Thanks for your updates and further investigation. It occurs to me that PDF documents like those shown in your example page are handled differently than image files.
You wrote “I went into the MLA library and all the thumbnails do show ALT text.” Where are you seeing these values? On my system only images have “Alternative Text” values displayed in the Media/Edit Media full-screen edit page. MLA lets you add ALT Text values to a PDF item and display them on the Media/Assistant screen. When I used [mla_gallery] to display a PDF gallery containing an item I added ALT Text to, the generated thumbnail did indeed have the ALT Text value.
Can you share the [mla_gallery] shortcode text you are using for your gallery?
I’m a dork! I misread the comment on Yoast. It did not say that there was “no ALT tag.” It said they didn’t reflect my key phrase. Therefore, I need to batch append a key phrase to the 150+ PDFs I already uploaded and categorized. Is there an easy way to append some words without completely replacing the current tags so they can each contain the key phrase and their individual description? Or must I do this manually?
Sorry to be such a pain in the @$$.
Thanks for clarifying. I want to make sure I understand your goal.
You wrote “without completely replacing the current tags“. Are you trying to update the “ALT Text” field for your PDF items, or to somehow modify the “tags”?
You want to “batch append a key phrase” to the existing ALT Text value of your PDF items; is that right?
If so, you can use a content template with something like:
template:([+alt_text+]) - my key phrase
That will preserve the current value and add the (literal) phrase to it. Does that make sense?
In my testing I found that the current MLA version does not allow changes to the ALT Text value from the Media/Assistant Bulk Edit area. That’s because WordPress only makes the value available for image MIME types, and MLA follows that rule.
However, you can use an IPTC/EXIF mapping rule to make the change:
- Enter the template in the “EXIF/Template Value” text box.
- Open the Bulk Edit area on the Media/Assistant screen for your selected items.
- Click the “Map IPTC/EXIF metadata” button in the lower right corner of the Bulk Edit area to apply the rule to your items.
Let me know if the above suggestions are helpful or if I haven’t understood your goal.
I understand from your update that you’ve achieved your goal – that’s excellent.
I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any remaining problems or further questions regarding the process of updating your ALT Text values. Thanks.
