“Actually, watermarks and other background images cause problems for readers with low vision who are not using screen-reading software, and therefore would best not be used at all.”

Charles Belov
SFMTA Webmaster
http://www.sfmta.com/webmaster

I want to thank Charles for that and say that he is correct! Watermarks certainly can cause problems for low visions readers and are best not used. There are other more appropriate methods of indicating the same information without the use of a watermark.

All too often it is easy to forget that not just screen reader users are affected by inaccessible content and products but any impairment needs to be addressed with our efforts.

Thanks again Charles!

As of version 10 of JAWS the watermark alt text in Word is still not read. I haven’t follow up with that ‘good source’ that told me they were working on addressing this issue but my guess is that it is a low priority and may never be fixed.

But still, do not let anyone tell you it can’t be done. As we have proven here you CAN add alt text to a watermark in Microsoft Word.