HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference, 4th Edition

Name

a — HTML 4.01 | HTML5

Synopsis

<a> . . . </a>

Defines an anchor that can be used as a hypertext link or a named fragment within the document. When the href attribute is set to a valid URI, the anchor is a hypertext link to a web page, page fragment, or another resource. The name or id attributes are used to label an anchor and allow it to serve as the destination point of a link. An a element may have both href and name/id attributes.

Notes

In HTML5, the href attribute may be omitted to use an a element as a “placeholder link.” HTML5 also permits flow content (block elements) within a elements.

Start/End Tags

Required/Required

Attributes

Core, Internationalization, Events, Focus, HTML5 Global Attributes

charset="charset"

Not in HTML5. Specifies the character encoding of the target document.

coords="x,y coordinates"

Not in HTML5. Specifies the x/y-coordinates for a clickable area in an image map. The HTML 4.01 Recommendation proposes that client-side image maps be replaced with an object element containing the image and a set of anchor elements defining the “hot” areas (with shapes and coordinate attributes). This system has not been implemented by browsers and has been dropped in HTML5.

href="URI"

Specifies the location of the destination document or web resource (such as an image, audio, PDF, or other media file).

hreflang="language code"

Specifies the base language of the target document.

id="text"

Gives the link a unique name (similar to the name attribute) so that it can be referenced from ...