The Structure of HTML

None.

As the root element of a document.

Wherever a subdocument fragment is allowed in a compound document.

A head element followed by a body element.

An html element's start tag can be omitted if the first thing inside the html element is not a comment.

An html element's end tag can be omitted if the html element is not immediately followed by a comment.

manifest — Application cache manifest

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

None

interface HTMLHtmlElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

The html element represents the root of an HTML document.

Authors are encouraged to specify a lang attribute on the root html element, giving the document's language. This aids speech synthesis tools to determine what pronunciations to use, translation tools to determine what rules to use, and so forth.

The manifest attribute gives the address of the document's application cache manifest, if there is one. If the attribute is present, the attribute's value must be a valid non-empty URL potentially surrounded by spaces.

The manifest attribute only has an effect during the early stages of document load. Changing the attribute dynamically thus has no effect (and thus, no DOM API is provided for this attribute).

For the purposes of application cache selection, later base elements cannot affect the resolving of relative URLs in manifest attributes, as the attributes are processed before those elements are seen.

The window.applicationCache IDL attribute provides scripted access to the offline application cache mechanism.

The html element in the following example declares that the document's language is English.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>Swapping Songs</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Swapping Songs</h1>
<p>Tonight I swapped some of the songs I wrote with some friends, who
gave me some of the songs they wrote. I love sharing my music.</p>
</body>
</html>

The `head` element

None.

As the first element in an html element.

If the document is an iframe srcdoc document or if title information is available from a higher-level protocol: Zero or more elements of metadata content, of which no more than one is a title element and no more than one is a base element.

Otherwise: One or more elements of metadata content, of which exactly one is a title element and no more than one is a base element.

A head element's start tag can be omitted if the element is empty, or if the first thing inside the head element is an element.

A head element's end tag can be omitted if the head element is not immediately followed by a space character or a comment.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

None

interface HTMLHeadElement : HTMLElement {};

The head element represents a collection of metadata for the Document.

The collection of metadata in a head element can be large or small. Here is an example of a very short one:

<!doctype html>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>A document with a short head</title>
 </head>
 <body>
 ...

Here is an example of a longer one:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<HTML>
 <HEAD>
  <META CHARSET="UTF-8">
  <BASE HREF="http://www.example.com/">
  <TITLE>An application with a long head</TITLE>
  <LINK REL="STYLESHEET" HREF="default.css">
  <LINK REL="STYLESHEET ALTERNATE" HREF="big.css" TITLE="Big Text">
  <SCRIPT SRC="support.js"></SCRIPT>
  <META NAME="APPLICATION-NAME" CONTENT="Long headed application">
 </HEAD>
 <BODY>
 ...

The title element is a required child in most situations, but when a higher-level protocol provides title information, e.g. in the Subject line of an e-mail when HTML is used as an e-mail authoring format, the title element can be omitted.

The `title` element

Metadata content.

In a head element containing no other title elements.

Text that is not inter-element whitespace.

Neither tag is omissible.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

None

interface HTMLTitleElement : HTMLElement {
  attribute DOMString text;
};

The title element represents the document's title or name. Authors should use titles that identify their documents even when they are used out of context, for example in a user's history or bookmarks, or in search results. The document's title is often different from its first heading, since the first heading does not have to stand alone when taken out of context.

There must be no more than one title element per document.

If it's reasonable for the Document to have no title, then the title element is probably not required. See the head element's content model for a description of when the element is required.

title . text [ = value ]

Returns the contents of the element, ignoring child nodes that aren't Text nodes.

Can be set, to replace the element's children with the given value.

The IDL attribute text must return a concatenation of the contents of all the Text nodes that are children of the title element (ignoring any other nodes such as comments or elements), in tree order. On setting, it must act the same way as the textContent IDL attribute.

Here are some examples of appropriate titles, contrasted with the top-level headings that might be used on those same pages.

  <title>Introduction to The Mating Rituals of Bees</title>
    ...
  <h1>Introduction</h1>
  <p>This companion guide to the highly successful
  <cite>Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping</cite> book is...

The next page might be a part of the same site. Note how the title describes the subject matter unambiguously, while the first heading assumes the reader knows what the context is and therefore won't wonder if the dances are Salsa or Waltz:

  <title>Dances used during bee mating rituals</title>
    ...
  <h1>The Dances</h1>

The string to use as the document's title is given by the document.title IDL attribute.

User agents should use the document's title when referring to the document in their user interface. When the contents of a title element are used in this way, the directionality of that title element should be used to set the directionality of the document's title in the user interface.

The `body` element

Sectioning root.

As the second element in an html element.

A body element's start tag can be omitted if the element is empty, or if the first thing inside the body element is not a space character or a comment, except if the first thing inside the body element is a meta, link, script, style, or template element.

A body element's end tag can be omitted if the body element is not immediately followed by a comment.

onafterprint

onbeforeprint

onbeforeunload

onhashchange

onlanguagechange

onmessage

onoffline

ononline

onpagehide

onpageshow

onpopstate

onstorage

onunload

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

document role (default - do not set), application.

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLBodyElement : HTMLElement {

  // also has obsolete members
};
HTMLBodyElement implements WindowEventHandlers;

The body element represents the content of the document.

In conforming documents, there is only one body element. The document.body IDL attribute provides scripts with easy access to a document's body element.

Some DOM operations (for example, parts of the drag and drop model) are defined in terms of "the body element". This refers to a particular element in the DOM, as per the definition of the term, and not any arbitrary body element.

The body element exposes as event handler content attributes a number of the event handlers of the Window object. It also mirrors their event handler IDL attributes.

The onblur, onerror, onfocus, onload, onresize, and onscroll event handlers of the Window object, exposed on the body element, replace the generic event handlers with the same names normally supported by HTML elements.

Thus, for example, a bubbling error event dispatched on a child of the body element of a Document would first trigger the onerror event handler content attributes of that element, then that of the root html element, and only then would it trigger the onerror event handler content attribute on the body element. This is because the event would bubble from the target, to the body, to the html, to the Document, to the Window, and the event handler on the body is watching the Window not the body. A regular event listener attached to the body using addEventListener(), however, would be run when the event bubbled through the body and not when it reaches the Window object.

This page updates an indicator to show whether or not the user is online:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Online or offline?</title>
  <script>
   function update(online) {
     document.getElementById('status').textContent =
       online ? 'Online' : 'Offline';
   }
  </script>
 </head>
 <body ononline="update(true)"
       onoffline="update(false)"
       onload="update(navigator.onLine)">
  <p>You are: <span id="status">(Unknown)</span></p>
 </body>
</html>

The `article` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Sectioning content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: article (default - do not set), application, document or main.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The article element represents a complete, or self-contained, composition in a document, page, application, or site and that is, in principle, independently distributable or reusable, e.g. in syndication. This could be a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, a blog entry, a user-submitted comment, an interactive widget or gadget, or any other independent item of content. Each article should be identified, typically by including a heading (h1–h6 element) as a child of the article element.

When article elements are nested, the inner article elements represent articles that are in principle related to the contents of the outer article. For instance, a blog entry on a site that accepts user-submitted comments could represent the comments as article elements nested within the article element for the blog entry.

Author information associated with an article element (q.v. the address element) does not apply to nested article elements.

When used specifically with content to be redistributed in syndication, the article element is similar in purpose to the entry element in Atom. [[ATOM]]

The schema.org microdata vocabulary can be used to provide the publication date for an article element, using one of the CreativeWork subtypes.

When the main content of the page (i.e. excluding footers, headers, navigation blocks, and sidebars) is all one single self-contained composition, that content may be marked with an article, but it is technically redundant in that case (since it's self-evident that the page is a single composition, as it is a single document).

This example shows a blog post using the article element, with some schema.org annotations:

<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
 <header>
  <h1 itemprop="headline">The Very First Rule of Life</h1>
  <p><time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-09">3 days ago</time></p>
  <link itemprop="url" href="?comments=0">
 </header>
 <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and
 sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p>
 <p>...</p>
 <footer>
  <a itemprop="discussionUrl" href="?comments=1">Show comments...</a>
 </footer>
</article>

Here is that same blog post, but showing some of the comments:

<article itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
 <header>
  <h1 itemprop="headline">The Very First Rule of Life</h1>
  <p><time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-09">3 days ago</time></p>
  <link itemprop="url" href="?comments=0">
 </header>
 <p>If there's a microphone anywhere near you, assume it's hot and
 sending whatever you're saying to the world. Seriously.</p>
 <p>...</p>
 <section>
  <h1>Comments</h1>
  <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c1">
   <link itemprop="url" href="#c1">
   <footer>
    <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
     <span itemprop="name">George Washington</span>
    </span></p>
    <p><time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2009-10-10">15 minutes ago</time></p>
   </footer>
   <p>Yeah! Especially when talking about your lobbyist friends!</p>
  </article>
  <article itemprop="comment" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/UserComments" id="c2">
   <link itemprop="url" href="#c2">
   <footer>
    <p>Posted by: <span itemprop="creator" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
     <span itemprop="name">George Hammond</span>
    </span></p>
    <p><time itemprop="commentTime" datetime="2009-10-10">5 minutes ago</time></p>
   </footer>
   <p>Hey, you have the same first name as me.</p>
  </article>
 </section>
</article>

Notice the use of footer to give the information for each comment (such as who wrote it and when): the footer element can appear at the start of its section when appropriate, such as in this case. (Using header in this case wouldn't be wrong either; it's mostly a matter of authoring preference.)

In this example, article elements are used to host widgets on a portal page.

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>eHome Portal</title>
<link rel=stylesheet href="/styles/main.css">
<article>
 <style scoped> @import url(/widgets/stocks/look.css); </style>
 <script src="/widgets/stocks/core.js"></script>
 <h1>Stocks</h1>
 <table>
  <thead> <tr> <th> Stock <th> Value <th> Delta
  <tbody> <template> <tr> <td> <td> <td> </template>
 </table>
 <p> <input type=button value="Refresh" onclick="stocks.refresh()">
</article>
<article>
 <style scoped> @import url(/widgets/news/look.css); </style>
 <script src="/widgets/news/core.js"></script>
 <h1>News</h1>
 <ul>
  <template>
   <li>
    <p><img> <strong></strong>
    <p>
  </template>
 </ul>
 <p> <input type=button value="Refresh" onclick="news.refresh()">
</article>

The `section` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Sectioning content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: region role (default - do not set), alert, alertdialog, application, contentinfo, dialog, document, log, main, marquee, presentation, search or status.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The section element represents a generic section of a document or application. A section, in this context, is a thematic grouping of content. Each section should be identified, typically by including a heading ( h1- h6 element) as a child of the section element.

Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site's home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, and contact information.

Authors are encouraged to use the article element instead of the section element when it would make sense to syndicate the contents of the element.

The section element is not a generic container element. When an element is needed only for styling purposes or as a convenience for scripting, authors are encouraged to use the div element instead. A general rule is that the section element is appropriate only if the element's contents would be listed explicitly in the document's outline.

Here is a graduation programme with two sections, one for the list of people graduating, and one for the description of the ceremony. (The markup in this example features an uncommon style sometimes used to minimise the amount of inter-element whitespace.)

<!DOCTYPE Html>
<Html
 ><Head
   ><Title
     >Graduation Ceremony Summer 2022</Title
   ></Head
 ><Body
   ><H1
     >Graduation</H1
   ><Section
     ><H1
       >Ceremony</H1
     ><P
       >Opening Procession</P
     ><P
       >Speech by Validactorian</P
     ><P
       >Speech by Class President</P
     ><P
       >Presentation of Diplomas</P
     ><P
       >Closing Speech by Headmaster</P
   ></Section
   ><Section
     ><H1
       >Graduates</H1
     ><Ul
       ><Li
         >Molly Carpenter</Li
       ><Li
         >Anastasia Luccio</Li
       ><Li
         >Ebenezar McCoy</Li
       ><Li
         >Karrin Murphy</Li
       ><Li
         >Thomas Raith</Li
       ><Li
         >Susan Rodriguez</Li
     ></Ul
   ></Section
 ></Body
></Html>

The `nav` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Sectioning content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content, but with no main element descendants.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: navigation role (default - do not set) or presentation.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The nav element represents a section of a page that links to other pages or to parts within the page: a section with navigation links.

In cases where the content of a nav element represents a list of items, use list markup to aid understanding and navigation.

Not all groups of links on a page need to be in a nav element — the element is primarily intended for sections that consist of major navigation blocks. In particular, it is common for footers to have a short list of links to various pages of a site, such as the terms of service, the home page, and a copyright page. The footer element alone is sufficient for such cases; while a nav element can be used in such cases, it is usually unnecessary.

User agents (such as screen readers) that are targeted at users who can benefit from navigation information being omitted in the initial rendering, or who can benefit from navigation information being immediately available, can use this element as a way to determine what content on the page to initially skip or provide on request (or both).

In the following example, there are two nav elements, one for primary navigation around the site, and one for secondary navigation around the page itself.

<body>
 <h1>The Wiki Center Of Exampland</h1>
 <nav>
  <ul>
   <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
   <li><a href="/events">Current Events</a></li>
   ...more...
  </ul>
 </nav>
 <article>
  <header>
   <h1>Demos in Exampland</h1>
   <p>Written by A. N. Other.</p>
  </header>
  <nav>
   <ul>
    <li><a href="#public">Public demonstrations</a></li>
    <li><a href="#destroy">Demolitions</a></li>
    ...more...
   </ul>
  </nav>
  <div>
   <section id="public">
    <h1>Public demonstrations</h1>
    <p>...more...</p>
   </section>
   <section id="destroy">
    <h1>Demolitions</h1>
    <p>...more...</p>
   </section>
   ...more...
  </div>
  <footer>
   <p><a href="?edit">Edit</a> | <a href="?delete">Delete</a> | <a href="?Rename">Rename</a></p>
  </footer>
 </article>
 <footer>
  <p><small>© copyright 1998 Exampland Emperor</small></p>
 </footer>
</body>

In the following example, the page has several places where links are present, but only one of those places is considered a navigation section.

<body itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Blog">
 <header>
  <h1>Wake up sheeple!</h1>
  <p><a href="news.html">News</a> -
     <a href="blog.html">Blog</a> -
     <a href="forums.html">Forums</a></p>
  <p>Last Modified: <span itemprop="dateModified">2009-04-01</span></p>
  <nav>
   <h1>Navigation</h1>
   <ul>
    <li><a href="articles.html">Index of all articles</a></li>
    <li><a href="today.html">Things sheeple need to wake up for today</a></li>
    <li><a href="successes.html">Sheeple we have managed to wake</a></li>
   </ul>
  </nav>
 </header>
 <main>
  <article itemprop="blogPosts" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting">
   <header>
    <h1 itemprop="headline">My Day at the Beach</h1>
   </header>
   <main itemprop="articleBody">
    <p>Today I went to the beach and had a lot of fun.</p>
    ...more content...
   </main>
   <footer>
    <p>Posted <time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-10-10">Thursday</time>.</p>
   </footer>
  </article>
  ...more blog posts...
 </main>
 <footer>
  <p>Copyright ©
   <span itemprop="copyrightYear">2010</span>
   <span itemprop="copyrightHolder">The Example Company</span>
  </p>
  <p><a href="about.html">About</a> -
     <a href="policy.html">Privacy Policy</a> -
     <a href="contact.html">Contact Us</a></p>
 </footer>
</body>

Notice the main elements being used to wrap all the contents of the page other than the header and footer, and all the contents of the blog entry other than its header and footer.

You can also see microdata annotations in the above example that use the schema.org vocabulary to provide the publication date and other metadata about the blog post.

A nav element doesn't have to contain a list, it can contain other kinds of content as well. In this navigation block, links are provided in prose:

<nav>
 <h1>Navigation</h1>
 <p>You are on my home page. To the north lies <a href="/blog">my
 blog</a>, from whence the sounds of battle can be heard. To the east
 you can see a large mountain, upon which many <a
 href="/school">school papers</a> are littered. Far up thus mountain
 you can spy a little figure who appears to be me, desperately
 scribbling a <a href="/school/thesis">thesis</a>.</p>
 <p>To the west are several exits. One fun-looking exit is labeled <a
 href="http://games.example.com/">"games"</a>. Another more
 boring-looking exit is labeled <a
 href="http://isp.example.net/">ISP™</a>.</p>
 <p>To the south lies a dark and dank <a href="/about">contacts
 page</a>. Cobwebs cover its disused entrance, and at one point you
 see a rat run quickly out of the page.</p>
</nav>

In this example, nav is used in an e-mail application, to let the user switch folders:

<p><input type=button value="Compose" onclick="compose()"></p>
<nav>
 <h1>Folders</h1>
 <ul>
  <li> <a href="/inbox" onclick="return openFolder(this.href)">Inbox</a> <span class=count></span>
  <li> <a href="/sent" onclick="return openFolder(this.href)">Sent</a>
  <li> <a href="/drafts" onclick="return openFolder(this.href)">Drafts</a>
  <li> <a href="/trash" onclick="return openFolder(this.href)">Trash</a>
  <li> <a href="/customers" onclick="return openFolder(this.href)">Customers</a>
 </ul>
</nav>

The `aside` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Sectioning content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content, but with no main element descendants.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: complementary role (default - do not set), note, search or presentation.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The aside element represents a section of a page that consists of content that is tangentially related to the content around the aside element, and which could be considered separate from that content. Such sections are often represented as sidebars in printed typography.

The element can be used for typographical effects like pull quotes or sidebars, for advertising, for groups of nav elements, and for other content that is considered separate from the main content of the page.

It's not appropriate to use the aside element just for parentheticals, since those are part of the main flow of the document.

The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up background material on Switzerland in a much longer news story on Europe.

<aside>
 <h1>Switzerland</h1>
 <p>Switzerland, a land-locked country in the middle of geographic
 Europe, has not joined the geopolitical European Union, though it is
 a signatory to a number of European treaties.</p>
</aside>

The following example shows how an aside is used to mark up a pull quote in a longer article.

...

<p>He later joined a large company, continuing on the same work.
<q>I love my job. People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at
work. But I'm paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to
answer. Some people wonder what they would do if they didn't have to
work... but I know what I would do, because I was unemployed for a
year, and I filled that time doing exactly what I do now.</q></p>

<aside>
 <q> People ask me what I do for fun when I'm not at work. But I'm
 paid to do my hobby, so I never know what to answer. </q>
</aside>

<p>Of course his work — or should that be hobby? —
isn't his only passion. He also enjoys other pleasures.</p>

...

The following extract shows how aside can be used for blogrolls and other side content on a blog:

<body>
 <header>
  <h1>My wonderful blog</h1>
  <p>My tagline</p>
 </header>
 <aside>
  <!-- this aside contains two sections that are tangentially related
  to the page, namely, links to other blogs, and links to blog posts
  from this blog -->
  <nav>
   <h1>My blogroll</h1>
   <ul>
    <li><a href="http://blog.example.com/">Example Blog</a>
   </ul>
  </nav>
  <nav>
   <h1>Archives</h1>
   <ol reversed>
    <li><a href="/last-post">My last post</a>
    <li><a href="/first-post">My first post</a>
   </ol>
  </nav>
 </aside>
 <aside>
  <!-- this aside is tangentially related to the page also, it
  contains twitter messages from the blog author -->
  <h1>Twitter Feed</h1>
  <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31351234">
   I'm on vacation, writing my blog.
  </blockquote>
  <blockquote cite="http://twitter.example.net/t31219752">
   I'm going to go on vacation soon.
  </blockquote>
 </aside>
 <article>
  <!-- this is a blog post -->
  <h1>My last post</h1>
  <p>This is my last post.</p>
  <footer>
   <p><a href="/last-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a>
  </footer>
 </article>
 <article>
  <!-- this is also a blog post -->
  <h1>My first post</h1>
  <p>This is my first post.</p>
  <aside>
   <!-- this aside is about the blog post, since it's inside the
   <article> element; it would be wrong, for instance, to put the
   blogroll here, since the blogroll isn't really related to this post
   specifically, only to the page as a whole -->
   <h1>Posting</h1>
   <p>While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to say something about
   posting. Posting is fun!</p>
  </aside>
  <footer>
   <p><a href="/first-post" rel=bookmark>Permalink</a>
  </footer>
 </article>
 <footer>
  <nav>
   <a href="/archives">Archives</a> —
   <a href="/about">About me</a> —
   <a href="/copyright">Copyright</a>
  </nav>
 </footer>
</body>

The `h1`, `h2`, `h3`, `h4`, `h5`, and `h6` elements

Where flow content is expected.

Phrasing content.

Neither tag is omissible.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

heading role (default - do not set), tab or presentation.

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLHeadingElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

These elements represent headings for their sections.

The semantics and meaning of these elements are defined in the section on headings and sections.

These elements have a rank given by the number in their name. The h1 element is said to have the highest rank, the h6 element has the lowest rank, and two elements with the same name have equal rank.

h1–h6 elements must not be used to markup subheadings, subtitles, alternative titles and taglines unless intended to be the heading for a new section or subsection. Instead use the markup patterns in the Common idioms without dedicated elements section of the specification.

As far as their respective document outlines (their heading and section structures) are concerned, these two snippets are semantically equivalent:

<body>
<h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1>
<h2>Diving in</h2>
<h2>Simple shapes</h2>
<h2>Canvas coordinates</h2>
<h3>Canvas coordinates diagram</h3>
<h2>Paths</h2>
</body>

<body>
 <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1>
 <section>
  <h1>Diving in</h1>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h1>Simple shapes</h1>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h1>Canvas coordinates</h1>
  <section>
   <h1>Canvas coordinates diagram</h1>
  </section>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h1>Paths</h1>
 </section>
</body>

Authors might prefer the former style for its terseness, or the latter style for its convenience in the face of heavy editing; which is best is purely an issue of preferred authoring style.

The two styles can be combined, for compatibility with legacy tools while still future-proofing for when that compatibility is no longer needed. This third snippet again has the same outline as the previous two:

<body>
 <h1>Let's call it a draw(ing surface)</h1>
 <section>
  <h2>Diving in</h2>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h2>Simple shapes</h2>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h2>Canvas coordinates</h2>
  <section>
   <h3>Canvas coordinates diagram</h3>
  </section>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h2>Paths</h2>
 </section>
</body>

The `header` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content, but with no header, footer, or main element descendants.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: banner role (default - do not set) or presentation.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The header element represents introductory content for its nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element. A header typically contains a group of introductory or navigational aids. When the nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element is the body element, then it applies to the whole page.

The header element is not sectioning content; it doesn't introduce a new section.

In this example, the page has a page heading given by the h1 element, and two subsections whose headings are given by h2 elements. The content after the header element is still part of the last subsection started in the header element, because the header element doesn't take part in the outline algorithm.

<body>
 <header>
  <h1>Little Green Guys With Guns</h1>
  <nav>
   <ul>
    <li><a href="/games">Games</a>
    <li><a href="/forum">Forum</a>
    <li><a href="/download">Download</a>
   </ul>
  </nav>
  <h2>Important News</h2> <!-- this starts a second subsection -->
  <!-- this is part of the subsection entitled "Important News" -->
  <p>To play today's games you will need to update your client.</p>
  <h2>Games</h2> <!-- this starts a third subsection -->
 </header>
 <p>You have three active games:</p>
 <!-- this is still part of the subsection entitled "Games" -->
 ...

The `footer` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected.
Content model:: Flow content, but with no header, footer, or main element descendants.
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: contentinfo role (default - do not set) or presentation.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement.

The footer element represents a footer for its nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element. A footer typically contains information about its section such as who wrote it, links to related documents, copyright data, and the like.

When the footer element contains entire sections, they represent appendices, indexes, long colophons, verbose license agreements, and other such content.

Contact information for the author or editor of a section belongs in an address element, possibly itself inside a footer. Bylines and other information that could be suitable for both a header or a footer can be placed in either (or neither). The primary purpose of these elements is merely to help the author write self-explanatory markup that is easy to maintain and style; they are not intended to impose specific structures on authors.

Footers don't necessarily have to appear at the end of a section, though they usually do.

When the nearest ancestor sectioning content or sectioning root element is the body element, then it applies to the whole page.

The footer element is not sectioning content; it doesn't introduce a new section.

Here is an example which shows the footer element being used both for a site-wide footer and for a section footer.

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>The Ramblings of a Scientist</TITLE>
<BODY>
<H1>The Ramblings of a Scientist</H1>
<ARTICLE>
 <H1>Episode 15</H1>
 <VIDEO SRC="/fm/015.ogv" CONTROLS PRELOAD>
  <P><A HREF="/fm/015.ogv">Download video</A>.</P>
 </VIDEO>
 <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article -->
  <P>Published <TIME DATETIME="2009-10-21T18:26-07:00">on 2009/10/21 at 6:26pm</TIME></P>
 </FOOTER>
</ARTICLE>
<ARTICLE>
 <H1>My Favorite Trains</H1>
 <P>I love my trains. My favorite train of all time is a Köf.</P>
 <P>It is fun to see them pull some coal cars because they look so
 dwarfed in comparison.</P>
 <FOOTER> <!-- footer for article -->
  <P>Published <TIME DATETIME="2009-09-15T14:54-07:00">on 2009/09/15 at 2:54pm</TIME></P>
 </FOOTER>
</ARTICLE>
<FOOTER> <!-- site wide footer -->
 <NAV>
  <P><A HREF="/credits.html">Credits</A> —
     <A HREF="/tos.html">Terms of Service</A> —
     <A HREF="/index.html">Blog Index</A></P>
 </NAV>
 <P>Copyright © 2009 Gordon Freeman</P>
</FOOTER>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Some site designs have what is sometimes referred to as "fat footers" — footers that contain a lot of material, including images, links to other articles, links to pages for sending feedback, special offers... in some ways, a whole "front page" in the footer.

This fragment shows the bottom of a page on a site with a "fat footer":

...
 <footer>
  <nav>
   <section>
    <h1>Articles</h1>
    <p><img src="images/somersaults.jpeg" alt=""> Go to the gym with
    our somersaults class! Our teacher Jim takes you through the paces
    in this two-part article. <a href="articles/somersaults/1">Part
    1</a> · <a href="articles/somersaults/2">Part 2</a></p>
    <p><img src="images/kindplus.jpeg"> Tired of walking on the edge of
    a clif<!-- sic -->? Our guest writer Lara shows you how to bumble
    your way through the bars. <a href="articles/kindplus/1">Read
    more...</a></p>
    <p><img src="images/crisps.jpeg"> The chips are down, now all
    that's left is a potato. What can you do with it? <a
    href="articles/crisps/1">Read more...</a></p>
   </section>
   <ul>
    <li> <a href="/about">About us...</a>
    <li> <a href="/feedback">Send feedback!</a>
    <li> <a href="/sitemap">Sitemap</a>
   </ul>
  </nav>
  <p><small>Copyright © 2015 The Snacker —
  <a href="/tos">Terms of Service</a></small></p>
 </footer>
</body>

The `main` element

Categories:: Flow content.; Palpable content.
Contexts in which this element can be used:: Where flow content is expected, but with no article, aside, footer, header or nav element ancestors.
Content model:: Flow content.
Content attributes:: Global attributes
Tag omission in text/html:: Neither tag is omissible
Allowed ARIA role attribute values:: main role (default - do not set) or presentation.
Allowed ARIA State and Property Attributes:: Global aria-* attributes; Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.
DOM interface:: Uses HTMLElement

The main element represents the main content of the body of a document or application. The main content area consists of content that is directly related to or expands upon the central topic of a document or central functionality of an application.

The main element is not sectioning content and has no effect on the document outline

The main content area of a document includes content that is unique to that document and excludes content that is repeated across a set of documents such as site navigation links, copyright information, site logos and banners and search forms (unless the document or applications main function is that of a search form).

User agents that support keyboard navigation of content are strongly encouraged to provide a method to navigate to the main element and once navigated to, ensure the next element in the focus order is the first focusable element within the main element. This will provide a simple method for keyboard users to bypass blocks of content such as navigation links.

Authors must not include more than one main element in a document.

Authors must not include the main element as a descendant of an article, aside, footer, header or nav element.

The main element is not suitable for use to identify the main content areas of sub sections of a document or application. The simplest solution is to not mark up the main content of a sub section at all, and just leave it as implicit, but an author could use a grouping content or sectioning content element as appropriate.

Authors are advised to use ARIA role="main" attribute on the main element until user agents implement the required role mapping.

  <main role="main"> 
  ... 
  </main>

In the following example, we see 2 articles about skateboards (the main topic of a Web page) the main topic content is identified by the use of the main element.

<!-- other content -->

<main>

  <h1>Skateboards</h1>
  <p>The skateboard is the way cool kids get around</p>
  
  <article>
  <h2>Longboards</h2>
  <p>Longboards are a type of skateboard with a longer 
  wheelbase and larger, softer wheels.</p>
  <p>... </p>
  <p>... </p>
  </article>

  <article>
  <h2>Electric Skateboards</h2>
  <p>These no longer require the propelling of the skateboard
  by means of the feet; rather an electric motor propels the board, 
  fed by an electric battery.</p>
  <p>... </p>
  <p>... </p>
  </article>

</main>

  <!-- other content -->

Here is a graduation programme the main content section is defined by the use of the main element. Note in this example the main element contains a nav element consisting of links to sub sections of the main content.

<!DOCTYPE html>
  <html lang="en">
  <head>
<title>Graduation Ceremony Summer 2022</title>
  </head>
  <body>

  <header>The Lawson Academy:
  <nav>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="courses.html">Courses</a></li>
  <li><a href="fees.html">Fees</a></li>
  <li><a>Graduation</a></li>
  </ul>
  </nav> 
  </header>


<main>


  <h1>Graduation</h1>

  <nav>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="#ceremony">Ceremony</a></li>
  <li><a href="#graduates">Graduates</a></li>
  <li><a href="#awards">Awards</a></li>
  </ul>
  </nav>

  <H2 id="ceremony">Ceremony</H2>
  <p>Opening Procession</p>
  <p>Speech by Valedictorian</p>
  <p>Speech by Class President</p>
  <p>Presentation of Diplomas</p>
  <p>Closing Speech by Headmaster</p>

  <h2 id="graduates">Graduates</h2>
  <ul>
  <li>Eileen Williams</li>
  <li>Andy Maseyk</li>
  <li>Blanca Sainz Garcia</li>
  <li>Clara Faulkner</li>
  <li>Gez Lemon</li>
  <li>Eloisa Faulkner</li>
  </ul>

  <h2 id="awards">Awards</h2>
  <ul>
  <li>Clara Faulkner</li>
  <li>Eloisa Faulkner</li>
  <li>Blanca Sainz Garcia</li>
  </ul>

</main>

  <footer> Copyright 2012 B.lawson</footer>

  </body>
  </html>

Headings and sections

The h1–h6 elements are headings.

The first element of heading content in an element of sectioning content represents the heading for that section. Subsequent headings of equal or higher rank start new (implied) sections, headings of lower rank start implied subsections that are part of the previous one. In both cases, the element represents the heading of the implied section.

Certain elements are said to be sectioning roots, including blockquote and td elements. These elements can have their own outlines, but the sections and headings inside these elements do not contribute to the outlines of their ancestors.

Sectioning content elements are always considered subsections of their nearest ancestor sectioning root or their nearest ancestor element of sectioning content, whichever is nearest, regardless of what implied sections other headings may have created.

For the following fragment:

<body>
 <h1>Foo</h1>
 <h2>Bar</h2>
 <blockquote>
  <h3>Bla</h3>
 </blockquote>
 <p>Baz</p>
 <h2>Quux</h2>
 <section>
  <h3>Thud</h3>
 </section>
 <p>Grunt</p>
</body>

...the structure would be:

Foo (heading of explicit body section, containing the "Grunt" paragraph)
1. Bar (heading starting implied section, containing a block quote and the "Baz" paragraph)
2. Quux (heading starting implied section with no content other than the heading itself)
3. Thud (heading of explicit section section)

Notice how the section ends the earlier implicit section so that a later paragraph ("Grunt") is back at the top level.

Sections may contain headings of any rank, but authors are strongly encouraged to either use only h1 elements, or to use elements of the appropriate rank for the section's nesting level.

Authors are also encouraged to explicitly wrap sections in elements of sectioning content, instead of relying on the implicit sections generated by having multiple headings in one element of sectioning content.

For example, the following is correct:

<body>
 <h4>Apples</h4>
 <p>Apples are fruit.</p>
 <section>
  <h2>Taste</h2>
  <p>They taste lovely.</p>
  <h6>Sweet</h6>
  <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p>
  <h1>Colour</h1>
  <p>Apples come in various colours.</p>
 </section>
</body>

However, the same document would be more clearly expressed as:

<body>
 <h1>Apples</h1>
 <p>Apples are fruit.</p>
 <section>
  <h2>Taste</h2>
  <p>They taste lovely.</p>
  <section>
   <h3>Sweet</h3>
   <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p>
  </section>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h2>Colour</h2>
  <p>Apples come in various colours.</p>
 </section>
</body>

Both of the documents above are semantically identical and would produce the same outline in compliant user agents.

This third example is also semantically identical, and might be easier to maintain (e.g. if sections are often moved around in editing):

<body>
 <h1>Apples</h1>
 <p>Apples are fruit.</p>
 <section>
  <h1>Taste</h1>
  <p>They taste lovely.</p>
  <section>
   <h1>Sweet</h1>
   <p>Red apples are sweeter than green ones.</p>
  </section>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h1>Colour</h1>
  <p>Apples come in various colours.</p>
 </section>
</body>

This final example would need explicit style rules to be rendered well in legacy browsers. Legacy browsers without CSS support would render all the headings as top-level headings.

There are currently no known implementations of the outline algorithm in graphical browsers or assistive technology user agents, although the algorithm is implemented in other software such as conformance checkers. Therefore the outline algorithm cannot be relied upon to convey document structure to users. Authors are advised to use heading rank (h1-h6) to convey document structure.

Creating an outline

This section defines an algorithm for creating an outline for a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element. It is defined in terms of a walk over the nodes of a DOM tree, in tree order, with each node being visited when it is entered and when it is exited during the walk.

The outline for a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element consists of a list of one or more potentially nested sections. The element for which an outline is created is said to be the outline's owner.

A section is a container that corresponds to some nodes in the original DOM tree. Each section can have one heading associated with it, and can contain any number of further nested sections. The algorithm for the outline also associates each node in the DOM tree with a particular section and potentially a heading. (The sections in the outline aren't section elements, though some may correspond to such elements — they are merely conceptual sections.)

The following markup fragment:

<body>
 <h1>A</h1>
 <p>B</p>
 <h2>C</h2>
 <p>D</p>
 <h2>E</h2>
 <p>F</p>
</body>

...results in the following outline being created for the body node (and thus the entire document):

Section created for body node.

Associated with heading "A".

Also associated with paragraph "B".

Nested sections:
1. Section implied for first h2 element.
  
  Associated with heading "C".
  
  Also associated with paragraph "D".
  
  No nested sections.
2. Section implied for second h2 element.
  
  Associated with heading "E".
  
  Also associated with paragraph "F".
  
  No nested sections.

The algorithm that must be followed during a walk of a DOM subtree rooted at a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element to determine that element's outline is as follows:

Let current outline target be null. (It holds the element whose outline is being created.)
Let current section be null. (It holds a pointer to a section, so that elements in the DOM can all be associated with a section.)
Create a stack to hold elements, which is used to handle nesting. Initialise this stack to empty.
Walk over the DOM in tree order, starting with the sectioning content element or sectioning root element at the root of the subtree for which an outline is to be created, and trigger the first relevant step below for each element as the walk enters and exits it.
When exiting an element, if that element is the element at the top of the stack

The element being exited is a heading content element or an element with a hidden attribute.

Pop that element from the stack.

If the top of the stack is a heading content element or an element with a hidden attribute
Do nothing.
When entering an element with a hidden attribute

Push the element being entered onto the stack. (This causes the algorithm to skip that element and any descendants of the element.)

When entering a sectioning content element
Run these steps:
1. If current outline target is not null, run these substeps:
  1. If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
  2. Push current outline target onto the stack.
2. Let current outline target be the element that is being entered.
3. Let current section be a newly created section for the current outline target element.
4. Associate current outline target with current section.
5. Let there be a new outline for the new current outline target, initialised with just the new current section as the only section in the outline.
When exiting a sectioning content element, if the stack is not empty
Run these steps:
1. If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
2. Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outline target be that element.
3. Let current section be the last section in the outline of the current outline target element.
4. Append the outline of the sectioning content element being exited to the current section. (This does not change which section is the last section in the outline.)
When entering a sectioning root element
Run these steps:
1. If current outline target is not null, push current outline target onto the stack.
2. Let current outline target be the element that is being entered.
3. Let current outline target's parent section be current section.
4. Let current section be a newly created section for the current outline target element.
5. Let there be a new outline for the new current outline target, initialised with just the new current section as the only section in the outline.
When exiting a sectioning root element, if the stack is not empty
Run these steps:
1. If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.
2. Let current section be current outline target's parent section.
3. Pop the top element from the stack, and let the current outline target be that element.
When exiting a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element (when the stack is empty)

The current outline target is the element being exited, and it is the sectioning content element or a sectioning root element at the root of the subtree for which an outline is being generated.

If the current section has no heading, create an implied heading and let that be the heading for the current section.

Skip to the next step in the overall set of steps. (The walk is over.)

When entering a heading content element
If the current section has no heading, let the element being entered be the heading for the current section.

Otherwise, if the element being entered has a rank equal to or higher than the heading of the last section of the outline of the current outline target, or if the heading of the last section of the outline of the current outline target is an implied heading, then create a new section and append it to the outline of the current outline target element, so that this new section is the new last section of that outline. Let current section be that new section. Let the element being entered be the new heading for the current section.

Otherwise, run these substeps:
1. Let candidate section be current section.
2. Heading loop: If the element being entered has a rank lower than the rank of the heading of the candidate section, then create a new section, and append it to candidate section. (This does not change which section is the last section in the outline.) Let current section be this new section. Let the element being entered be the new heading for the current section. Abort these substeps.
3. Let new candidate section be the section that contains candidate section in the outline of current outline target.
4. Let candidate section be new candidate section.
5. Return to the step labeled heading loop.
Push the element being entered onto the stack. (This causes the algorithm to skip any descendants of the element.)

Recall that h1 has the highest rank, and h6 has the lowest rank.
Otherwise
Do nothing.
In addition, whenever the walk exits a node, after doing the steps above, if the node is not associated with a section yet, associate the node with the section current section.
Associate all non-element nodes that are in the subtree for which an outline is being created with the section with which their parent element is associated.
Associate all nodes in the subtree with the heading of the section with which they are associated, if any.

The tree of sections created by the algorithm above, or a proper subset thereof, must be used when generating document outlines, for example when generating tables of contents.

The outline created for the body element of a Document is the outline of the entire document.

When creating an interactive table of contents, entries should jump the user to the relevant sectioning content element, if the section was created for a real element in the original document, or to the relevant heading content element, if the section in the tree was generated for a heading in the above process.

Selecting the first section of the document therefore always takes the user to the top of the document, regardless of where the first heading in the body is to be found.

The outline depth of a heading content element associated with a section section is the number of sections that are ancestors of section in the outermost outline that section finds itself in when the outlines of its Document's elements are created, plus 1. The outline depth of a heading content element not associated with a section is 1.

User agents should provide default headings for sections that do not have explicit section headings.

Consider the following snippet:

<body>
 <nav>
  <p><a href="/">Home</a></p>
 </nav>
 <p>Hello world.</p>
 <aside>
  <p>My cat is cute.</p>
 </aside>
</body>

Although it contains no headings, this snippet has three sections: a document (the body) with two subsections (a nav and an aside). A user agent could present the outline as follows:

Untitled document
1. Navigation
2. Sidebar

These default headings ("Untitled document", "Navigation", "Sidebar") are not specified by this specification, and might vary with the user's language, the page's language, the user's preferences, the user agent implementor's preferences, etc.

The following JavaScript function shows how the tree walk could be implemented. The root argument is the root of the tree to walk (either a sectioning content element or a sectioning root element), and the enter and exit arguments are callbacks that are called with the nodes as they are entered and exited. [[!ECMA262]]

function (root, enter, exit) {
  var node = root;
  start: while (node) {
    enter(node);
    if (node.firstChild) {
      node = node.firstChild;
      continue start;
    }
    while (node) {
      exit(node);
      if (node == root) {
        node = null;
      } else if (node.nextSibling) {
        node = node.nextSibling;
        continue start;
      } else {
        node = node.parentNode;
      }
    }
  }
}

Sample outlines

This section is non-normative.

The following document shows a straight-forward application of the outline algorithm. First, here is the document, which is a book with very short chapters and subsections:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>The Tax Book (all in one page)</title>
<h1>The Tax Book</h1>
<h2>Earning money</h2>
<p>Earning money is good.</p>
<h3>Getting a job</h3>
<p>To earn money you typically need a job.</p>
<h2>Spending money</h2>
<p>Spending is what money is mainly used for.</p>
<h3>Cheap things</h3>
<p>Buying cheap things often not cost-effective.</p>
<h3>Expensive things</h3>
<p>The most expensive thing is often not the most cost-effective either.</p>
<h2>Investing money</h2>
<p>You can lend your money to other people.</p>
<h2>Losing money</h2>
<p>If you spend money or invest money, sooner or later you will lose money.
<h3>Poor judgement</h3>
<p>Usually if you lose money it's because you made a mistake.</p>

This book would form the following outline:

The Tax Book
1. Earning money
  1. Getting a job
2. Spending money
  1. Cheap things
  2. Expensive things
3. Investing money
4. Losing money
  1. Poor judgement

Notice that the title element does not participate in the outline.

Here is a similar document, but this time using section elements to get the same effect:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>The Tax Book (all in one page)</title>
<h1>The Tax Book</h1>
<section>
 <h1>Earning money</h1>
 <p>Earning money is good.</p>
 <section>
  <h1>Getting a job</h1>
  <p>To earn money you typically need a job.</p>
 </section>
</section>
<section>
 <h1>Spending money</h1>
 <p>Spending is what money is mainly used for.</p>
 <section>
  <h1>Cheap things</h1>
  <p>Buying cheap things often not cost-effective.</p>
 </section>
 <section>
  <h1>Expensive things</h1>
  <p>The most expensive thing is often not the most cost-effective either.</p>
 </section>
</section>
<section>
 <h1>Investing money</h1>
 <p>You can lend your money to other people.</p>
</section>
<section>
 <h1>Losing money</h1>
 <p>If you spend money or invest money, sooner or later you will lose money.
 <section>
  <h1>Poor judgement</h1>
  <p>Usually if you lose money it's because you made a mistake.</p>
 </section>
</section>

This book would form the same outline:

The Tax Book
1. Earning money
  1. Getting a job
2. Spending money
  1. Cheap things
  2. Expensive things
3. Investing money
4. Losing money
  1. Poor judgement

A document can contain multiple top-level headings:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>Alphabetic Fruit</title>
<h1>Apples</h1>
<p>Pomaceous.</p>
<h1>Bananas</h1>
<p>Edible.</p>
<h1>Carambola</h1>
<p>Star.</p>

This would form the following simple outline consisting of three top-level sections:

Apples
Bananas
Carambola

Effectively, the body element is split into three.

Mixing both the h1–h6 model and the section/h1 model can lead to some unintuitive results.

Consider for example the following, which is just the previous example but with the contents of the (implied) body wrapped in a section:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>Alphabetic Fruit</title>
<section>
 <h1>Apples</h1>
 <p>Pomaceous.</p>
 <h1>Bananas</h1>
 <p>Edible.</p>
 <h1>Carambola</h1>
 <p>Star.</p>
</section>

The resulting outline would be:

(untitled page)
1. Apples
2. Bananas
3. Carambola

This result is described as unintuitive because it results in three subsections even though there's only one section element. Effectively, the section is split into three, just like the implied body element in the previous example.

(In this example, "(untitled page)" is the implied heading for the body element, since it has no explicit heading.)

Headings never rise above other sections. Thus, in the following example, the first h1 does not actually describe the page header; it describes the header for the second half of the page:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>Feathers on The Site of Encyclopedic Knowledge</title>
<section>
 <h1>A plea from our caretakers</h1>
 <p>Please, we beg of you, send help! We're stuck in the server room!</p>
</section>
<h1>Feathers</h1>
<p>Epidermal growths.</p>

The resulting outline would be:

(untitled page)
1. A plea from our caretakers
Feathers

Thus, when an article element starts with a nav block and only later has its heading, the result is that the nav block is not part of the same section as the rest of the article in the outline. For instance, take this document:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<title>We're adopting a child! — Ray's blog</title>
<h1>Ray's blog</h1>
<article>
 <header>
  <nav>
   <a href="?t=-1d">Yesterday</a>;
   <a href="?t=-7d">Last week</a>;
   <a href="?t=-1m">Last month</a>
  </nav>
  <h1>We're adopting a child!</h1>
 </header>
 <main>
  <p>As of today, Janine and I have signed the papers to become
  the proud parents of baby Diane! We've been looking forward to
  this day for weeks.</p>
 </main>
</article>

The resulting outline would be:

Ray's blog
1. Untitled article
  1. Untitled navigation section
2. We're adopting a child!

Also worthy of note in this example is that the header and main elements have no effect whatsoever on the document outline.

Exposing outlines to users

User agents are encouraged to expose page outlines to users to aid in navigation. This is especially true for non-visual media, e.g. screen readers.

However, to mitigate the difficulties that arise from authors misusing sectioning content, user agents are also encouraged to offer a mode that navigates the page using heading content alone.

For instance, a user agent could map the arrow keys as follows:

Shift+← Left: Go to previous section, including subsectons of previous sections
Shift+→ Right: Go to next section, including subsections of the current section
Shift+↑ Up: Go to parent section of the current section
Shift+↓ Down: Go to next section, skipping subsections of the current section

Plus in addition, the user agent could map the j and k keys to navigating to the previous or next element of heading content, regardless of the section's outline depth and ignoring sections with no headings.

The `p` element

Palpable content.

Where flow content is expected.

Phrasing content.

A p element's end tag can be omitted if the p element is immediately followed by an address, article, aside, blockquote, details, div, dl, fieldset, figcaption, figure, , form, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, header, hgroup, hr, main, , nav, ol, p, pre, section, table, or ul, element, or if there is no more content in the parent element and the parent element is an HTML element that is not an a, audio, del, ins, map, noscript, or video element.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLParagraphElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

The p element represents a paragraph.

While paragraphs are usually represented in visual media by blocks of text that are physically separated from adjacent blocks through blank lines, a style sheet or user agent would be equally justified in presenting paragraph breaks in a different manner, for instance using inline pilcrows (¶).

The following examples are conforming HTML fragments:

<p>The little kitten gently seated himself on a piece of
carpet. Later in his life, this would be referred to as the time the
cat sat on the mat.</p>

<fieldset>
 <legend>Personal information</legend>
 <p>
   <label>Name: <input name="n"></label>
   <label><input name="anon" type="checkbox"> Hide from other users</label>
 </p>
 <p><label>Address: <textarea name="a"></textarea></label></p>
</fieldset>

<p>There was once an example from Femley,<br>
Whose markup was of dubious quality.<br>
The validator complained,<br>
So the author was pained,<br>
To move the error from the markup to the rhyming.</p>

The p element should not be used when a more specific element is more appropriate.

The following example is technically correct:

<section>
 <!-- ... -->
 <p>Last modified: 2001-04-23</p>
 <p>Author: fred@example.com</p>
</section>

However, it would be better marked-up as:

<section>
 <!-- ... -->
 <footer>Last modified: 2001-04-23</footer>
 <address>Author: fred@example.com</address>
</section>

Or:

<section>
 <!-- ... -->
 <footer>
  <p>Last modified: 2001-04-23</p>
  <address>Author: fred@example.com</address>
 </footer>
</section>

List elements (in particular, ol and ul elements) cannot be children of p elements. When a sentence contains a bulleted list, therefore, one might wonder how it should be marked up.

For instance, this fantastic sentence has bullets relating to

wizards,
faster-than-light travel, and
telepathy,

and is further discussed below.

The solution is to realise that a paragraph, in HTML terms, is not a logical concept, but a structural one. In the fantastic example above, there are actually five paragraphs as defined by this specification: one before the list, one for each bullet, and one after the list.

The markup for the above example could therefore be:

<p>For instance, this fantastic sentence has bullets relating to</p>
<ul>
 <li>wizards,
 <li>faster-than-light travel, and
 <li>telepathy,
</ul>
<p>and is further discussed below.</p>

Authors wishing to conveniently style such "logical" paragraphs consisting of multiple "structural" paragraphs can use the div element instead of the p element.

Thus for instance the above example could become the following:

<div>For instance, this fantastic sentence has bullets relating to
<ul>
 <li>wizards,
 <li>faster-than-light travel, and
 <li>telepathy,
</ul>
and is further discussed below.</div>

This example still has five structural paragraphs, but now the author can style just the div instead of having to consider each part of the example separately.

The `div` element

Palpable content.

Where flow content is expected.

Neither tag is omissible.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLDivElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

The div element has no special meaning at all. It represents its children. It can be used with the class, lang, and title attributes to mark up semantics common to a group of consecutive elements.

Authors are strongly encouraged to view the div element as an element of last resort, for when no other element is suitable. Use of more appropriate elements instead of the div element leads to better accessibility for readers and easier maintainability for authors.

For example, a blog post would be marked up using article, a chapter using section, a page's navigation aids using nav, and a group of form controls using fieldset.

On the other hand, div elements can be useful for stylistic purposes or to wrap multiple paragraphs within a section that are all to be annotated in a similar way. In the following example, we see div elements used as a way to set the language of two paragraphs at once, instead of setting the language on the two paragraph elements separately:

<article lang="en-US">
 <h1>My use of language and my cats</h1>
 <p>My cat's behaviour hasn't changed much since her absence, except
 that she plays her new physique to the neighbors regularly, in an
 attempt to get pets.</p>
 <div lang="en-GB">
  <p>My other cat, coloured black and white, is a sweetie. He followed
  us to the pool today, walking down the pavement with us. Yesterday
  he apparently visited our neighbours. I wonder if he recognises that
  their flat is a mirror image of ours.</p>
  <p>Hm, I just noticed that in the last paragraph I used British
  English. But I'm supposed to write in American English. So I
  shouldn't say "pavement" or "flat" or "colour"...</p>
 </div>
 <p>I should say "sidewalk" and "apartment" and "color"!</p>
</article>

The `hr` element

Where flow content is expected.

Nothing.

No end tag.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

separator (default - do not set) or presentation.

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLHRElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

The hr element represents a paragraph-level thematic break, e.g. a scene change in a story, or a transition to another topic within a section of a reference book.

The following fictional extract from a project manual shows two sections that use the hr element to separate topics within the section.

<section>
 <h1>Communication</h1>
 <p>There are various methods of communication. This section
 covers a few of the important ones used by the project.</p>
 <hr>
 <p>Communication stones seem to come in pairs and have mysterious
 properties:</p>
 <ul>
  <li>They can transfer thoughts in two directions once activated
  if used alone.</li>
  <li>If used with another device, they can transfer one's
  consciousness to another body.</li>
  <li>If both stones are used with another device, the
  consciousnesses switch bodies.</li>
 </ul>
 <hr>
 <p>Radios use the electromagnetic spectrum in the meter range and
 longer.</p>
 <hr>
 <p>Signal flares use the electromagnetic spectrum in the
 nanometer range.</p>
</section>
<section>
 <h1>Food</h1>
 <p>All food at the project is rationed:</p>
 <dl>
  <dt>Potatoes</dt>
  <dd>Two per day</dd>
  <dt>Soup</dt>
  <dd>One bowl per day</dd>
 </dl>
 <hr>
 <p>Cooking is done by the chefs on a set rotation.</p>
</section>

There is no need for an hr element between the sections themselves, since the section elements and the h1 elements imply thematic changes themselves.

The following extract from Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton shows two paragraphs that precede a scene change and the paragraph that follows it. The scene change, represented in the printed book by a gap containing a solitary centered star between the second and third paragraphs, is here represented using the hr element.

<p>Dudley was ninety-two, in his second life, and fast approaching
time for another rejuvenation. Despite his body having the physical
age of a standard fifty-year-old, the prospect of a long degrading
campaign within academia was one he regarded with dread. For a
supposedly advanced civilization, the Intersolar Commonwealth could be
appallingly backward at times, not to mention cruel.</p>
<p><i>Maybe it won't be that bad</i>, he told himself. The lie was
comforting enough to get him through the rest of the night's
shift.</p>
<hr>
<p>The Carlton AllLander drove Dudley home just after dawn. Like the
astronomer, the vehicle was old and worn, but perfectly capable of
doing its job. It had a cheap diesel engine, common enough on a
semi-frontier world like Gralmond, although its drive array was a
thoroughly modern photoneural processor. With its high suspension and
deep-tread tyres it could plough along the dirt track to the
observatory in all weather and seasons, including the metre-deep snow
of Gralmond's winters.</p>

The hr element does not affect the document's outline.

The `pre` element

Palpable content.

Where flow content is expected.

Phrasing content.

Neither tag is omissible.

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.

interface HTMLPreElement : HTMLElement {
  // also has obsolete members
};

The pre element represents a block of preformatted text, in which structure is represented by typographic conventions rather than by elements.

In the HTML syntax, a leading newline character immediately following the pre element start tag is stripped.

Some examples of cases where the pre element could be used:

Including an e-mail, with paragraphs indicated by blank lines, lists indicated by lines prefixed with a bullet, and so on.
Including fragments of computer code, with structure indicated according to the conventions of that language.
Displaying ASCII art.

Authors are encouraged to consider how preformatted text will be experienced when the formatting is lost, as will be the case for users of speech synthesizers, braille displays, and the like. For cases like ASCII art, it is likely that an alternative presentation, such as a textual description, would be more universally accessible to the readers of the document.

To represent a block of computer code, the pre element can be used with a code element; to represent a block of computer output the pre element can be used with a samp element. Similarly, the kbd element can be used within a pre element to indicate text that the user is to enter.

This element has rendering requirements involving the bidirectional algorithm.

In the following snippet, a sample of computer code is presented.

<p>This is the <code>Panel</code> constructor:</p>
<pre><code>function Panel(element, canClose, closeHandler) {
  this.element = element;
  this.canClose = canClose;
  this.closeHandler = function () { if (closeHandler) closeHandler() };
}</code></pre>

In the following snippet, samp and kbd elements are mixed in the contents of a pre element to show a session of Zork I.

<pre><samp>You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded
front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

></samp> <kbd>open mailbox</kbd>

<samp>Opening the mailbox reveals:
A leaflet.

></samp></pre>

The following shows a contemporary poem that uses the pre element to preserve its unusual formatting, which forms an intrinsic part of the poem itself.

<pre>                maxling

it is with a          heart
               heavy

that i admit loss of a feline
        so           loved

a friend lost to the
        unknown
                                (night)

~cdr 11dec07</pre>

The `blockquote` element

Where flow content is expected.

cite - Link to the source of the quotation.

Neither tag is omissible

Allowed ARIA role attribute values:

Any aria-* attributes applicable to the allowed roles.