HTML <rt> Tag

The HTML <rt> tag marks the ruby text component of a ruby annotation.

Ruby annotations are often used in East Asian typography.

Ruby (also spelt rubi) characters are small, annotative glosses that can be placed above or to the right of a Chinese character when writing logographic languages such as Chinese or Japanese to show the pronunciation. Ruby annotations, are usually used as a pronunciation guide for relatively obscure characters.

Syntax

The <rt> tag is written as <rt></rt> with the ruby text inserted between the start and end tags.

Like this:

Examples

Basic Ruby Annotation

Here's an example of using the <rt> tag to present ruby text within a ruby annotation.

Omitting the End Tag

The <rt> element's end tag may be omitted if the <rt> element is immediately followed by an <rb>, <rt>, <rtc> or <rp> element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.

An <rb> element's end tag may be omitted if the <rb> element is immediately followed by an <rb>, <rt>, <rtc> or <rp> element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.

Therefore, the following example conforms to HTML5.

Fallback Content

You can use the <rp> element to provide fallback content for those browsers/user agents that don't support ruby annotations.

Like this:

Attributes

Attributes can be added to an HTML element to provide more information about how the element should appear or behave.

There are 3 kinds of attributes that you can add to your HTML tags: Element-specific, global, and event handler content attributes.

The <rt> element accepts the following attributes.

Element-Specific Attributes

This table shows the attributes that are specific to the <rt> tag/element.

AttributeDescription
none 

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML5 elements. Therefore, you can use these attributes with the <rt> tag , as well as with all other HTML tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handler Content Attributes

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Below are the standard HTML5 event handler content attributes.

Again, you can use any of these with the <rt> element, as well as any other HTML5 element.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 event handler content attributes.

Differences Between HTML 4 & HTML 5

The <rt> element is new in HTML5.

For more information on the element, see HTML5 <rt> Tag. Also check out the links to the official specifications below.

Template

Here's a template for the <rt> tag with all available attributes for the tag (based on HTML5). These are grouped into attribute types, each type separated by a space. In many cases, you will probably only need one or two (if any) attributes. Simply remove the attributes you don't need.

Note that the <rt> element does not actually have any local attributes (i.e. attributes that are specific to the element), but the following global attributes and event handlers are available to the element (and all other HTML elements).

For more information on attributes for this tag, see HTML5 <rt> Tag.

Tag Details

For more details about the <rt> tag, see HTML5 <rt> Tag.

Specifications

Here are the official specifications for the <rt> element.

What's the Difference?

W3C creates "snapshot" specifications that don't change once defined. So the HTML5 specification won't change once it becomes an official recommendation. WHATWG on the other hand, develops a "living standard" that is updated on a regular basis. In general, you will probably find that the HTML living standard will be more closely aligned to the current W3C draft than to the HTML5 specification.

Related