abbr Element

 

Module

The abbr element is an inline element declared by the XHTML 1.1 Text Module (Inline Phrasal)

Elements in the Text Module are:
span | br (Inline Structural Support Module)
em | strong | q | cite | abbr | acronym | code | var | kbd | samp | dfn (Inline Phrasal Support Module)
div | p (Block Structural Support Module)
h1 - h6 | blockquote | pre | address (Block Phrasal Support Module)

Description

The abbr element is used to indicate that the enclosed text is an abbreviation. The title attribute can be used to give the full text which has been abbreviated.

Often, a browser will render text within an abbr with some kind of line underneath, usually dotted, and will pop up a tooltip containing the full text when the mouse hovers over the element. No styles have been applied to the example abbr elements above so they are rendered using your browser's default behaviour. My version of Konqueror (3.5.4) automatically styles abbr as font-variant:small-caps (but does not place a line beneath the text).

Note: If you need compatibility with Internet Explorer you should note that the abbr element is not supported in IE6 and below. A common way to get around this problem is to use the acronym element instead, even though it is not semantically correct for all abbreviations. Since IE7 now supports the abbr element, it is my policy to use the semantically correct element in all cases.

See also the acronym element.

#REQUIRED Attributes

There are no #REQUIRED attributes on the abbr element.

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Specific Attributes

There are no specific attributes declared on the abbr element.

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Common Attributes

From the Core Attribute Collection

class [ type NMTOKENS ]

One or more space separated classes

id [ type ID ]

A unique identifier for the element

style [ type CDATA ], from the Style Attribute Module (deprecated)

Element-specific styles

title [ type Text ]

For an abbr element, the full text corresponding to the abbreviation should be specified in the title attribute (in some user agents this may appear as a "tooltip" when the mouse hovers over the element)

xmlns [ type URI - #FIXED 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml' ]

XML namespace

From the I18N Attribute Collection

dir [ type Enumeration (ltr | rtl) ], from the Bi-directional Text Module

Left-to-right or right-to-left directionality

xml:lang [ type LanguageCode ]

A language code for the element

From the Events Attribute Collection

All attributes in the Events Attribute Collection are supported:
onclick, ondblclick, onmousedown, onmouseup, onmouseover, onmousemove, onmouseout, onkeypress, onkeydown, onkeyup

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Content Model

The Content Model for the abbr element is:

( #PCDATA | Inline.mix )*

See Content Model & Nesting for information about Content Model syntax and Nesting Groups.

Valid children of abbr

• #PCDATA
• From the Text Module: abbr, acronym, br, cite, code, dfn, em, kbd, q, samp, span, strong, var
• From the Hypertext Module: a
• From the Forms Module: button, input, label, select, textarea
• From the Images Module: img
• From the Presentation Module: b, big, i, small, sub, sup, tt
• From the Client-side Image Map Module: map
• From the Scripting Module: noscript, script
• From the Edit Module: del, ins
• From the Bi-directional Text Module: bdo
• From the Object Module: object
• From the Ruby Annotation Module: ruby

Valid parents of abbr

• From the Text Module: abbr, acronym, address, cite, code, dfn, div, em, h1 - h6, kbd, p, pre, q, samp, span, strong, var
• From the Hypertext Module: a
• From the List Module: dd, dt, li
• From the Tables Module: caption, td, th
• From the Forms Module: button, fieldset, label, legend
• From the Presentation Module: b, big, i, small, sub, sup, tt
• From the Edit Module: del, ins
• From the Bi-directional Text Module: bdo
• From the Object Module: object
• From the Ruby Annotation Module: rb, rt