HTML <caption> Tag

The HTML <caption> tag is used for creating captions for the <table> element. A <caption> element represents the title of the table.

The <caption> element can be useful when it's not apparent what the data in the table represents. This is often true when a data contains nothing but numbers, or a series of letters or symbols. The <caption> element allows you to provide a context for the data in the table.

Syntax

The <caption> tag is written as <caption></caption> with the caption content inserted between the start and end tags. It must appear as the first child of a <table> element.

Like this:

Examples

Basic tag usage

This example shows a basic sample caption in a table. Although the <caption> tag is located inside the <table> tag, most (if not all) browsers display the caption outside the table.

Actual Usage

Here is an example of where the <caption> element can come in handy.

Note that you can use any flow content (except for the <table> element) within the <caption> element. So you can use the <p> tag to create paragraphs within the <caption> element, as well as other tags as required.

Attributes

Attributes can be added to an HTML element to provide more information about how the element should appear or behave.

There are 3 kinds of attributes that you can add to your HTML tags: Element-specific, global, and event handler content attributes.

The <caption> element accepts the following attributes.

Element-Specific Attributes

This table shows the attributes that are specific to the <caption> tag/element.

AttributeDescription
None 

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML5 elements. Therefore, you can use these attributes with the <caption> tag , as well as with all other HTML tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handler Content Attributes

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Below are the standard HTML5 event handler content attributes.

Again, you can use any of these with the <caption> element, as well as any other HTML5 element.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 event handler content attributes.

Differences Between HTML 4 & HTML 5

The align element (which was deprecated in HTML 4) is obsolete in HTML5. Use the CSS align property to set the horizontal alignment. You can also use vertical-align to set the vertical alignment if required.

To see more detail on the two versions see HTML5 <caption> Tag and HTML4 <caption> Tag. Also check out the links to the official specifications below.

Template

Here's a template for the <caption> tag with all available attributes for the tag (based on HTML5). These are grouped into attribute types, each type separated by a space. In many cases, you will probably only need one or two (if any) attributes. Simply remove the attributes you don't need.

Note that the <caption> element does not actually have any local attributes (i.e. attributes that are specific to the element), but the following global attributes and event handlers are available to the element (and all other HTML elements).

For more information on attributes for this tag, see HTML5 <caption> Tag and HTML4 <caption> Tag.

Tag Details

For more details about the <caption> tag, see HTML5 <caption> Tag and HTML4 <caption> Tag.

Specifications

Here are the official specifications for the <caption> element.

What's the Difference?

W3C creates "snapshot" specifications that don't change once defined. So the HTML5 specification won't change once it becomes an official recommendation. WHATWG on the other hand, develops a "living standard" that is updated on a regular basis. In general, you will probably find that the HTML living standard will be more closely aligned to the current W3C draft than to the HTML5 specification.

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