HTML Help & Resources

Uncommon HTML Tags

There are many HTML tags, and some have very unique purposes and definitions. While not every other HTML tag is listed here, some infrequently used references are listed for conveinence below.

ABBR

This tag is useful to highlight abbreviations. Using CSS, you can define style elements for this tag, and use it's TITLE attribute to encourage browsers to display bubble, or tool-tip, text to display the full name. An example of use below.

ACRONYM

Acronyms are used quite frequently in communication, because they are easily shortened, to save space and repetition, but many acronyms are not commonly known. Below in an example of how you can use this definition to save valuable text space, while providing visitors additional information that will help them understand what they're reading.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Document Title</TITLE>
    ... META DATA ...
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    
    <P>I am a legal citizen of the <ACRONYM TITLE="United States of America">U.S.A.</ACRONYM></P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

ADDRESS

The address tag can be flexible, or the definition stretched to include physical locations, as long as the address relates to the page, and content, being viewed. However, it's an unknown factor regarding how search engines classify this information, despite the informative tag description. An example of use is below.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Document Title</TITLE>
    ... META DATA ...
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    
    <ADDRESS>
      <H6>Business Inquiries</H6>
      <SPAN>Contact:</SPAN><A HREF="mailto:john.doe@somedomain.com">Doe, John</A>
    </ADDRESS>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

CITE

Cite is used to attribute a reference or relation to a quote, paragraph, article, business, etc., found on a web page.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Document Title</TITLE>
    ... META DATA ...
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
  
    <P>Portions of this article are referenced in <CITE><A HREF="http://www.somenewspaper.com">Some Newspaper</A></CITE></P>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

DL, DT & DD

These containers are definition list items, the virtually unknown cousin to the OL and UL HTML references. Their purpose is to list definitions, and their associated descriptions, in an ordered form. While not laid out the same as OL and UL, using CSS style elements, you can create some unique display features using these tags.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Document Title</TITLE>
    ... META DATA ...
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
  
  <DL>
    <DT><ACRONYM>HTML</ACRONYM></DT>
    <DD><P>An acronym that stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, used to display web documents in browsers.</P></DD>
    <DT><ACRONYM>PHP</ACRONYM></DT>
    <DD><P>An acronym that stands for Hyper Text Preprocessor, and is a popular server-side scripting language.</P></DD>
  </DL>
  </BODY>
</HTML>

LABEL

Labels can be unique features used in conjuntion with forms, and client-side scripting. There are a few different uses for this reference, and each one can have different viewable results. Examples are below.

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Document Title</TITLE>
    ... META DATA ...
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
  
  
    <LABEL>
      Lastname
      <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="lastname">
    </LABEL>

  
  
    <TD><LABEL FOR="lname">Lastname</LABEL></TD>
    <TD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="lastname" ID="lname"></TD>
  
  </BODY>
</HTML>

VAR

VAR is not a common use reference, but used to display variable name references. An example of use below.

Reference Menu