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The <u> Tag in HTML
Note: Contrary to the reports on other web sites and blogs, the <u> tag is not deprecated in HTML 5 and later. See Changes in HTML 5 below.
The <u> tag is used to visually highlight some content, without imparting any audible emphasis to it. Browsers will normally underline the text inside the u element, which draws the text with a solid underscore line.
In some languages the underline has a special meaning. In Chinese for example, a single straight underline is used to indicate a proper name, which can allow distinguishing one name from others marked in the same manner, and a wavy underline is similarly used to indicate the title of a book or other work of literature.
Here is a demo of HTML code for an entry in a bibliography:
- Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House, 1957; New York: Plume, 1999.
This is an actual working example of the <u> tag example code below.
In other contexts, use of the u element is discouraged for a number of reasons:
- underlined text that is not clickable can easily be confused with a hypertext link, especially in circumstances when their color cannot be used to distinguish between them
- for the separation of style and content, style information should be put into Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Therefore, the <u> tag should be avoided when possible. In most cases there are other HTML tags that would be more appropriate:
- the <b> tag can be used to highlight important words or phrases
- the <cite> tag can be used to display the title of a book or other creative work
- the <em> tag can be used to mark up text that is to be emphasized
- the <mark> tag can be used to mark words or phrases such as search terms
- the <strong> tag can be used to mark up text that is to be strongly emphasized
Text can also be underlined using the CSS text-decoration: underline
property.
<u> Tag Syntax
<body> ... ... phrasing content expected ...<u>... phrasing content ...</u>... ... </body>
Rules for coding the HTML u
element
Make sure you understand the difference between a tag and element and are familiar with the definitions of namespace and other HTML terms.
- Verify that the purpose for using the <u> tag cannot be served better using another tag such as:
- Code the u element where phrasing content is expected.
- Begin the u element with a starting <u> tag. The element name uses lower case letters and should be in the HTML namespace, which it will pick up automatically from the
xmlns
attribute on the <html> tag. - Include any HTML global attributes on the <u> tag as appropriate.
- Inside the u element, between the starting
<u>
tag and the ending</u>
tag, code the inner HTML phrasing content. - End the u element with a matching
</u>
closing tag.
Content Model
Content of the uelement
The content of the u element can include HTML comments, text content and only those HTML tags that can be used in phrasing content.
<u> Tag Attributes
Attributes of the <u> tag
global attributes | The only attributes that can be coded on the <u> tag are the common HTML attributes. |
<u> Tag Examples
Examples of the u
tag in HTML
HTML Code for Bibliography Entry
(see <u> tag demo above)
<ul style="margin: 0; list-style: none"> <li>Rand, Ayn. <u>Atlas Shrugged</u>. New York: Random House, 1957; New York: Plume, 1999.</li> </ul>
The style="margin: 0; list-style: none"
attribute creates the unordered list without bullets, eliminating the margin space where the bullets would normally appear.
Changes in HTML 5 - <u> Tag
The <u> tag was deprecated in HTML 4 and considered invalid in later versions, but has now been added back into the WHATWG HTML Living Standard and W3C HTML 5 (after the two versions diverged - see difference between HTML 5 and HTML Living Standard). Therefore, whether or not the u element is valid depends on the version of HTML:
- HTML 2 and earlier - <u> tag did not exist
- HTML 3.2 - <u> tag added
- HTML 4 - <u> tag deprecated, invalid in HTML 4 strict DTD
- XHTML - <u> tag invalid
- WHATWG HTML 5 - u element invalid
- WHATWG HTML Living Standard - u element added
- W3C HTML 5 - u element added