Use a Photo's Embedded Description as Its Alt Text
Fills the alt text of newly uploaded photos from the description or headline embedded by cameras, photo agencies and Lightroom (IPTC data), when it exists and no alt text is set.
Opens WPIDE on
Code
add_filter( 'wp_generate_attachment_metadata', function ( $metadata, $attachment_id, $context = 'create' ) {
if ( 'create' !== $context || ! wp_attachment_is_image( $attachment_id ) || '' !== (string) get_post_meta( $attachment_id, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', true ) ) {
return $metadata;
}
$info = $metadata['image_meta'] ?? array();
$text = '';
foreach ( array( 'caption', 'title' ) as $field ) {
if ( ! empty( $info[ $field ] ) && ! preg_match( '/^(DSC|IMG|DCIM|P\d{6,})[_-]?\d*/i', $info[ $field ] ) ) {
$text = $info[ $field ];
break;
}
}
if ( '' !== trim( $text ) ) {
update_post_meta( $attachment_id, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', sanitize_text_field( wp_trim_words( $text, 25, '' ) ) );
}
return $metadata;
}, 10, 3 );Notes
Agency captions can be long; the alt text is trimmed to 25 words. Photos without embedded text are left for you to describe.
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