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[InDesign 21.5] “Remove All AI-Generated Alt Text” Fails to Detect and Remove Existing AI-Generated Alt Text

Forum|Forum|29 days ago
August 5, 2026
19 replies
185 views

(05/08/2026, version 21.5, updated yesterday) Glad for the option to delete all AI generated alt-text... if only it would work properly. The remove all button doesn’t recognize the generated alt-text and pretends there is nothing to delete.

This document has 208 pages and there is several pictures on each of them. Having AI generated descriptions on our images erodes the trust our clients have in our products, and I had to find roundabout techniques to delete them directly in the exported PDF because as a professional, I can not afford the time to delete them all by hand, one by one in InDesign. Thus, neither me or my colleagues have touched the descriptions : they are as they were generated (without our consent) when this feature was pushed without notice. So the feature should recognize them as AI generated text to be deleted, and just does not.

I keep being dissatisfied with how this whole situation have been handled since it’s been reported month ago.

Dialog box says “No AI-generative alt-tex to delete" , when there’s clearly a “generated by AI” labelled text just behind, on the very image I used to access these options.

Correct answer Abhishek Rao

Hi @R.+Touret and everyone,

Thank you for your patience and for sharing the additional details and testing results. I have an update from the product team regarding this behavior.

The Remove All AI-Generated Alt Text option is designed to detect and remove AI-generated alt text in documents created with InDesign 21.4 or later. This is why AI-generated descriptions in documents created with earlier versions may not be detected by the Remove All option, even though the descriptions themselves are still present and identified as AI-generated.

The team is also working on updating the relevant Help documentation in an upcoming release to make this requirement clearer.

Thank you again for taking the time to test this on InDesign 21.5.1 and for providing detailed information about your documents and workflow.

I hope this helps clarify why you're seeing this behavior.

Abhishek

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Why does the GenAI Alt-Text writing feature not put anything under the “Tagged PDF” tab?

Anyway, here are some solutions to the current problem that may help:

InDesign GenAI Alt-Text preference blocker startup script

https://trainingonsite.com/235-indesign-generative-ai-blocker.html

InDesign Alt-Text Assistant script speeds Alt-Text description writing

https://trainingonsite.com/233-indesign-accessibility-alt-text-assistant.html

Mike Witherell

rachitm999

Participant

Hi @R.+Touret et al, we will investigate the issue at our end and get back to you soon.

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

It worked on my quick test (only two images). I am using 21.5.1.

If it still doesn’t work after the update, my other question would be “was the text edited at all”? (Probably not, but it would be my next question...)

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

R.+TouretAuthor

Participant

No, I didn’t want to have to delete it by hand so I left all text as is (all my subsequent actions happened directly on the generated PDF, not the InDesign).

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

To clarify, I meant edited such as phrasing, not deleted.

You can delete all the alt text (auto and manual) in Acrobat Pro using PDF Optimizer and removing User Data.

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @R.+Touret,

Thanks for reporting this, and I’m sorry for the trouble this has caused, especially with such a large document.

Could you please update to the latest InDesign 21.5.1 through the Creative Cloud desktop app and test the Remove All AI-Generated Alt Text option again? I tested the workflow on 21.5.1, and it worked as expected on my end.

Additionally, once you're on 21.5.1, please open the affected document and save it as a new INDD file with a different name, then test the Remove All option in that newly saved file. Please let us know whether the AI-generated Alt Text is detected and removed correctly there.

Looking forward to your update.

Thanks,
Abhishek

R.+TouretAuthor

Participant

Hi Abhishek, I updated to the latest version through Creative Cloud just this morning, and tried both suggestions. Neither worked, I get the exact same message “no AI-generated text to delete”, all the while a very obvious “generated by IA” text was visible behind. Does that even after saving the file as a new indd with a new name.

As Dave asked above, I didn’t edit any of the AI-generated text myself : seeing how much work it would be, I used alternative methods to delete them from the PDF instead.

Additional context :

-I have all genIA options disables in my preferences

-This file is hosted on a cloud (Dropbox) shared by several collaborators, but I am the only one using it at the moment (has been so for months, no colleague touched it in the meantime)

-The IA descriptions were generated months ago, around when the “feature” was added (we discovered this issue with this very file).

graphics_4075

Inspiring

I am also experiencing the same behavior on 21.5.1, even after saving as a new .indd. Similar to @R.+Touret , my text is:

Unedited, in it’s original “generated” form
- Some succeeded, some failed and generated error text
GenAI is disabled in my preferences
File is hosted locally and used by only me
Descriptions were generated around when the feature was added.

This is happening on captions that say “(Description) Generated by AI”, and messages that say “[Error: Alt text was not generated.]” I am met with the message “No AI-generated alt text found to remove.”

If I generate new AI-Alt Text, the button then works. Very entertaining (yet frustrating, of course) to see the months-late solution to this issue is also broken upon release. Lmao.

Also, why is AI-Generated Alt Text no longer captioned as AI-Generated Text? This seems like a poor choice, as was previously wording the caption as “Generated by AI” implying the image may have been as well.

Cheers

leo.r

Community Expert

> because as a professional, I can not afford the time to delete them all by hand,
> one by one in InDesign

Well. There are scripts that can do this in InDesign in one click. Hopefully you won’t need them anymore, but keep it in mind.

In general, whenever it seems that InDesign requires you to do something “all by hand, one by one”, it’s almost always a sign that it can be automated.

Regardless, this Generative AI thing caused great frustration and huge amounts of wasted time for countless users.

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