<caption>: The Table Caption element
BaselineWidely available *
This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.
The<caption>HTML element specifies the caption (or title) of a table, providing the table anaccessible description.
Try it
<table> <caption> He-Man and Skeletor facts </caption> <tr> <td></td> <th scope="col">He-Man</th> <th scope="col">Skeletor</th> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row">Role</th> <td>Hero</td> <td>Villain</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row">Weapon</th> <td>Power Sword</td> <td>Havoc Staff</td> </tr> <tr> <th scope="row">Dark secret</th> <td>Expert florist</td> <td>Cries at romcoms</td> </tr></table>caption { caption-side: bottom; padding: 10px; font-weight: bold;}table { border-collapse: collapse; border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 0.8rem; letter-spacing: 1px;}th,td { border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160); padding: 8px 10px;}th { background-color: rgb(230 230 230);}td { text-align: center;}tr:nth-child(even) td { background-color: rgb(250 250 250);}tr:nth-child(odd) td { background-color: rgb(240 240 240);}.heman { font: 1.4rem molot, sans-serif; text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #fff, 2px 2px 1px #000;}.skeletor { font: 1.7rem rapscallion, fantasy; letter-spacing: 3px; text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 #fff, 0 0 9px #000;}Attributes
This element includes theglobal attributes.
Deprecated attributes
The following attributes are deprecated and should not be used. They are documented below for reference when updating existing code and for historical interest only.
alignDeprecatedSpecifies on which side of the table the caption should be displayed. The possibleenumerated values are
left,top,right, orbottom. Use thecaption-sideandtext-alignCSS properties instead, as this attribute is deprecated.
Usage notes
- If included, the
<caption>element must be the first child of its parent<table>element. - When a
<table>is nested within a<figure>as the figure's only content, it should be captioned via a<figcaption>for the<figure>instead of as a<caption>nested within the<table>. - Any
background-colorapplied to a table will not be applied to its caption. Add abackground-colorto the<caption>element as well if you want the same color to be behind both.
Example
See<table> for a complete table example introducing common standards and best practices.
Table with caption
This example demonstrates a basic table that includes a caption describing the data presented.
Such a "title" is helpful for users who are quickly scanning the page, and it is especially beneficial for visually impaired users, allowing them to determine the table's relevance quickly without the need to have a screen reader read the contents of many cells just to find out what the table is about.
HTML
A<caption> element is used as the first child of the<table>, with text content similar to a title to describe the table data. Three rows, the first being a header row, with two columns are created using the<tr>,<th> and<td> elements after the<caption>.
<table> <caption> User login email addresses </caption> <tr> <th>Login</th> <th>Email</th> </tr> <tr> <td>user1</td> <td>user1@example.com</td> </tr> <tr> <td>user2</td> <td>user2@example.com</td> </tr></table>CSS
Some basic CSS is used to align and highlight the<caption>.
caption { caption-side: top; text-align: left; padding-bottom: 10px; font-weight: bold;}table { border-collapse: collapse; border: 2px solid rgb(140 140 140); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 0.8rem; letter-spacing: 1px;}th,td { border: 1px solid rgb(160 160 160); padding: 8px 10px;}th { background-color: rgb(230 230 230);}td { text-align: center;}Result
Technical summary
| Content categories | None. |
|---|---|
| Permitted content | Flow content. |
| Tag omission | The end tag can be omitted if the element is not immediately followed by ASCII whitespace or a comment. |
| Permitted parents | A<table> element, as its first descendant. |
| Implicit ARIA role | caption |
| Permitted ARIA roles | Norole permitted |
| DOM interface | HTMLTableCaptionElement |
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| HTML # the-caption-element |
Browser compatibility
See also
- Learn: HTML table basics
<col>,<colgroup>,<table>,<tbody>,<td>,<tfoot>,<th>,<thead>,<tr>: Other table-related elementscaption-side: CSS property to position the<caption>relative to its parent<table>text-align: CSS property to horizontally align the text content of the<caption>