1.4.5: Images of Text

What it means

Use real text instead of images of text, except when the appearance is essential (for logos) or the image can be customised by the user. Text in images does not resize well and often lacks contrast control.

Prefer HTML text styled with CSS for headings, buttons, and promos.

How to fix it

• Replace banners and buttons that are flat PNGs with styled HTML text.
• If a logo must be an image, keep it as the only image-of-text on the page section.
• Provide SVG or HTML alternatives when users need to resize marketing headings.
• Do not screenshot paragraphs into JPEGs for convenience.

Quick examples

• Good: A promo headline is HTML text that users can resize and copy.
• Bad: The entire pricing tier description is a single image of small grey text.
• Good: The company wordmark is an image; all other copy on the page is real text.
• Bad: Navigation menu items are image sprites with no text equivalent.