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New! Now updated with the inheritance rules for the title attribute in HTML 5
The easiest way to create HTML code indicating that the acronym BU stands for Boston University is to simply include the acronym in an HTML <a> tag and an abbreviation tag (not an acronym tag):
This is the recommended code for both HTML 4 browsers and HTML 5 browsers. Some browsers, most notably IE, do not activate help when the title attribute is coded on the <abbr> tag, but they do work as expected for titles on the <a> tag. The <abbr> tag inherits its title attribute from the parent <a> tag.
If you are creating HTML code for the definition of Boston University, the meaning of the acronym BU, then include a <dfn> definition tag around the <abbr> abbreviation tag and follow the entire HTML code for the hypertext link with the definition of the term:
The <dfn> tag gets the term being defined from the title attribute of the <abbr> tag. The result should look like this (hovering your mouse over the BU acronym shows the expanded meaning of the acronym):
A BU is ...(definition of "Boston University")....
If you are creating HTML code that simply expands the acronym then indicate that it is the BU acronymn which is being defined using an HTML <dfn> tag with a title attribute around the <abbr> tag and follow the HTML for the hypertext link with the acronym definition:
The result should look like this (hovering your mouse over the BU acronym shows the definition):
When we use the acronym BU it is the abbreviation for Boston University.
For the remaining examples, the Acronym Vocabulary namespace URI needs to be declared for use with element tag names and attribute values. For an HTML web page, the beginning of the file should look like this:
This only needs to be done once per document file.
First, declare the vocabulary as shown above. Then, add acronyms as follows:
First, declare the vocabulary as shown above. Then, add acronyms as follows:
First, declare the vocabulary as shown above. Then, add acronyms as follows: