title

The title global attribute contains text representing advisory information, related to the element it belongs to. This information can be typically, but not necessarily, presented to the user as a tooltip. Some typical uses:

  • Link: title or description of the linked document
  • Media element like an image: description or associated credits
  • Paragraph: footnote or a commentary about it
  • Quotation: information about the author, and so on.

If this attribute is omitted, it means that the title of the nearest ancestor of this element is still relevant (and could be used as the tooltip for that element). If this attribute is set to the empty string, it explicitly means its nearest ancestor's title is not relevant (and shouldn't be used in the tooltip for this element).

Additional semantics are attached to the title attributes of the <link>, <abbr>, <input> and <menuitem> elements.

The title attribute may contain several lines. Each U+000A LINE FEED (LF) inserted represents such a newline. Some caution must be taken, as this means:

<p>Newlines in title should be taken into account,like this <abbr title="This is a
multiline title">example</abbr>.</p>

This example defines a two-line title.

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard
The definition of 'title' in that specification.		 Living Standard No change from latest snapshot, HTML 5.1
HTML 5.1
The definition of 'title' in that specification.		 Recommendation Snapshot of WHATWG HTML Living Standard, no change from HTML5
HTML5
The definition of 'title' in that specification.		 Recommendation Snapshot of WHATWG HTML Living Standard. From HTML 4.01 Specification, it is now a true global attribute.
HTML 4.01 Specification
The definition of 'title' in that specification.		 Recommendation Supported on all elements but <base>, <basefont>, <head>, <html>, <meta>, <param>, <script>, and <title>.

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
Multi-line support (Yes) 12 (12) (Yes) ? ?
Feature Android Chrome for Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes)
Multi-line support ? ? 12.0 (12) ? ? ?

See also

Document Tags and Contributors

Tags: 
 Contributors to this page: NimJay, bunnybooboo, IsaacSchemm, Nickolay, r-o-b, teoli
 Last updated by: NimJay,