Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Captions

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts WP:CAP WP:CAPTION

This page in a nutshell: Image captions should be succinct and informative.

A caption is text that appears below an image.^[a] Most captions draw attention to something in the image that is not obvious, such as its relevance to the text. A caption may be a few words or several sentences. Writing good captions takes effort; along with the lead and section headings, captions are the most commonly read words in an article, so they should be succinct and informative.

Not every image needs a caption; some are simply decorative. Relatively few may be genuinely self-explanatory. In addition to a caption, alt text – for visually impaired readers – should be added to informative (but not purely decorative) images;^[1][2][3] see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images.

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