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What is this new "T" icon on my images?

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
January 29, 2026
9 replies
2434 views

I have an indesign document with a ton of different images, 1 on each page of the doc. I’ve updated a few of these links today and the newly linked updated images have this icon on the bottom left corner which I’ve never seen before. Any idea what this is or what it means? These are not text boxes, there are no primary text frames in this document and no threaded text.

It is definitely attached to the linked image and nothing else, as it moves around with the image when I move the image.

Correct answer Abhishek Rao

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for sharing your observations and experiences around the new “T” icon. I understand that for some of you this has been confusing or frustrating, especially when it appears unexpectedly or when the preference seems locked.

To clarify, the “T” badge was introduced in InDesign 21.2 as part of the Auto-generate Alt Text feature. It indicates that the placed image is associated with accessibility and alt text handling. You can learn more about how this works and how to manage it here: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/alt-text-generation.html

We’re aware of reports where the Generative AI preferences appear greyed out, the badge remains on existing objects, or performance lag occurs when placing or relinking images. Bugs have been logged, and the product team is actively investigating both the greyed-out preference behavior and the related performance concerns. A separate thread tracking this is available here: https://community.adobe.com/questions-671/adobe-indesign-auto-alt-text-enabled-by-default-and-slows-performance-1550780?postid=7506220#post7506220

As the team continues to work through this, they’d like to confirm one more thing. Please completely quit InDesign, then restart your system. After the reboot, launch InDesign again and check whether the Auto-generate Alt Text option becomes active in Preferences.

if the issue still persists, please share a short screen recording showing your workflow, including the Generative AI preferences and when the icon appears or regenerates. Additionally, it would help if you could confirm your Adobe ID type (individual, enterprise, etc) via Plans, let us know how other Generative AI features are working such as Text to Image, and share the UXP logs from your machine. On Mac, the logs are located at /Users/{USER}/Library/Logs/Adobe/Adobe InDesign 2024. On Windows, they can be found at C:\Users{USER}\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Logs. If possible, we can also arrange a quick session with any impacted user to troubleshoot further.

Thank you again for your patience and detailed feedback. I’ll continue to share updates as soon as I have more information.

For better visibility and to keep the latest updates consolidated, I’m marking this response as correct. Thank you again for your patience and detailed feedback. I’ll continue to share updates as soon as I have more information.

Looking forward to hearing back.

Abhishek

U

udc-uk

Participant

what an obnoxious feature - especially one enabled without user notification or the ability to opt-out before it’s turned on. By all means offer it, but DO NOT EVER alter my work without permission.

nickmartello

Participant

How do I delete out all the garbage alt text that was applied to my document without my permission? Do I have to comb through every single image?

leo.r

Community Expert

There’s a script in this thread that deletes them all:

https://www.reddit.com/r/indesign/comments/1qv6qk1/how_do_i_remove_ai_alt_text_image_descriptions_on/

nickmartello

Participant

Thanks!

R

Robert32194799hqfj

Known Participant

It’s absurd that this was enabled for every user by default

Abhishek Rao

Correct answer

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for sharing your observations and experiences around the new “T” icon. I understand that for some of you this has been confusing or frustrating, especially when it appears unexpectedly or when the preference seems locked.

To clarify, the “T” badge was introduced in InDesign 21.2 as part of the Auto-generate Alt Text feature. It indicates that the placed image is associated with accessibility and alt text handling. You can learn more about how this works and how to manage it here: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/alt-text-generation.html

We’re aware of reports where the Generative AI preferences appear greyed out, the badge remains on existing objects, or performance lag occurs when placing or relinking images. Bugs have been logged, and the product team is actively investigating both the greyed-out preference behavior and the related performance concerns. A separate thread tracking this is available here: https://community.adobe.com/questions-671/adobe-indesign-auto-alt-text-enabled-by-default-and-slows-performance-1550780?postid=7506220#post7506220

As the team continues to work through this, they’d like to confirm one more thing. Please completely quit InDesign, then restart your system. After the reboot, launch InDesign again and check whether the Auto-generate Alt Text option becomes active in Preferences.

if the issue still persists, please share a short screen recording showing your workflow, including the Generative AI preferences and when the icon appears or regenerates. Additionally, it would help if you could confirm your Adobe ID type (individual, enterprise, etc) via Plans, let us know how other Generative AI features are working such as Text to Image, and share the UXP logs from your machine. On Mac, the logs are located at /Users/{USER}/Library/Logs/Adobe/Adobe InDesign 2024. On Windows, they can be found at C:\Users{USER}\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Logs. If possible, we can also arrange a quick session with any impacted user to troubleshoot further.

Thank you again for your patience and detailed feedback. I’ll continue to share updates as soon as I have more information.

For better visibility and to keep the latest updates consolidated, I’m marking this response as correct. Thank you again for your patience and detailed feedback. I’ll continue to share updates as soon as I have more information.

Looking forward to hearing back.

Abhishek

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hey all,

An interesting thing I just noticed in this new feature of Generative AI alt tagging: If you have it on, and place a graphic that is already alt-tagged in metadata … the Generative AI ignores it and writes its own. Not very intelligent (although it does remind me of … me.)

Another thing that surprises me is that the generic alt text that this new feature writes is only in the Alt Text tab; not the Tagged PDF alt text tab!

Mike Witherell

stephen_daviesDorset

Participant

This is driving me *crazy*. I have many several hundred page documents saved on a network server. Every time I open one, this tag is generated for *every* image. It takes forever and the only way to get rid of them is to manually delete it by alt-clicking and deleteing the text.

Yes, I’ve disabled it in preferences. Both with a doc open and not. Indesign developers deserve a kick in the shins for this. No-one asked for this!

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Stephen,

I tested on my end.

If I turn off the Preferences > Generate AI, and then open a document, it does not generate anything alt text for me.

If I have the 2 preferences turned on under Preferences > Generative AI, and open an existing document that has correct links, then it opens and does not make Alt-Text blue icons.

But if the document opens and has broken links, and I re-connect the linked images, then it does generate the little blue icon at the bottom left corner.

So try it again, and make sure you restart InDesign before opening a document, just to be on the safe side.

Mike Witherell

stephen_daviesDorset

Participant

I turned everything off and on again, packaged the file, downloaded from the server, double-checked it was all turned off and opened locally and some little T icons are still appearing - now with red dots showing nothing’s even been generated (I assume).

Now manually getting rid of them all. I still want to kick the Indesign dev team in the shins. Not for the first time. Canva Affinity beckons.

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Hi Isoneryum

You can go to Preferences > Generative AI and turn off two switches if you do not wish to see it.

Barb, I have experienced it turned on at default when I patched up to 21.2.

Is it useful? It depends.

An experienced who is subject to Section 508 rules knows that all images have to be alt-tagged with a usable description. So they might welcome it as a reminder nag; or they might not welcome the nag icon. Allowing AI to auto-generate a description for your graphic might give you accurate results; but might also give you nonsense. I would prefer to have a QA checklist that reminds me to go through each graphic and make sure the alt-text is present and also makes accurate sense.

If you publish in private industry and you know that your documents are not legally required to be accessible, then you might well reason to turn it off in preferences.

Mike Witherell

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Hi Mike!

Yes, it was on for you after your upgrade to 21.2 because you presumably have an All Apps (Pro) plan, and therefore unlimited standard generative AI credits.

I can see its usefulness—though it has struggled with a few of my test images—but of course all content needs to be reviewed before publishing, including the generated Alt text. I would be happy refine whatever is offered and see it as a timesaver when in a 508-compliant workflow.

On the other hand, for people like us (trainers and forum helpers) who regularly place sample images to aid students and users understand InDesign’s features—if we had the single app plan and had this new feature enabled, we’d blow through those 25 credits in a few days.

— https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/alt-text-generation.html

At any rate, I spent some time here today getting up to speed on general vs premium credits, and which plans include credits and how many, all of which I have tended to not pay much attention to in the past. https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/apps/generative-ai/generative-credits-faq.html#monthly-generative-credits

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Here are a few more things to add to @Abhishek Rao’s comment (and Abhishek, if anything is incorrect please let me know!):

Auto-Generate Alt Text is on as a default for users with unlimited general AI credits (i.e., Enterprise and Pro (or All Apps) subscriptions).
Auto-Generate Alt Text is off as a default for users with a Single User subscription. Note that enabling it will consume one credit per use and the Single User subscription has 25 credits per month, per user.

If Auto-generate Alt Text is off when you import an image, the T does not appear.
If Auto-generate Alt Text is enabled when you place an image, the T appears. Turning it off for future imports leaves the T in place on the ones placed when it was on.

Examples of the T appearing or not, based on if the feature was enabled when the file was placed.

I haven’t found any global visibility options like we have in View > Extras for the Content Grabber, Live Corners and Anchored Object control.

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Isoneryum,

Thanks for reaching out. What you’re seeing is expected behavior in InDesign 21.2. This is a new feature introduced to support generating alt text for placed images, and the ‘T’ icon indicates that the image is associated with accessibility and alt text handling.

You can learn more about how this works and how to manage it in this article, which walks through the feature in detail: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/alt-text-generation.html
What’s New: New and enhanced features | Latest release of InDesign

Please let me know if this clears things up or if you’re seeing anything unexpected with these images.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

stonepier

Participating Frequently

I wish we could turn it off. I never asked for it to be turned on and now Adobe has decided I need to see it. I can’t even see where you could adjust the tags if you wanted it on. I mean what purpose does this serve when working on a print document.

Frans v.d. Geest

Community Expert

You can turn it off in Preferences ;-)

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