HTML & XHTML Pocket Reference, 4th Edition

Name

link — HTML 4.01 | HTML5

Synopsis

HTML: <link>; XHTML: <link/> or <link />

Defines the relationship between the current document and another document. Although it can signify such relationships as index, next, and previous, it is most often used to link a document to an external style sheet.

Start/End Tags

This is an empty element. In HTML, the end tag is forbidden. In XHTML, the element must be closed with a trailing slash as just shown. Developers may include a space character before the slash for backward compatibility with older browsers.

Attributes

Core, Internationalization, Events, HTML5 Global Attributes

charset="charset"

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

href="URL"

Identifies the linked document.

hreflang="language code"

Specifies the base language of the linked document.

media="all|screen|print|handheld|projection|tty|tv|projection|braille|aural"

Identifies the media to which the linked resource applies. Most often, it is used to assign style sheets to their appropriate media.

rel="link type keyword"

Describes one or more relationships from the current source document to the linked document. The link types specified in both the HTML 4.01 and 5 specifications are alternate, help, index, next, prev, and stylesheet. The HTML 4.01-only keywords include appendix, chapter, contents, copyright, glossary, section, start, and subsection. The following link types are specified in HTML5 only: archives, author, first, icon, last, license, pingback, prefetch ...