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W3C Recommendation

Summary

The a element (<a>) defines a hyperlink (a link) to any content, may be another page, another section of the same page, an image/file or it may invoke a JavaScript function.

Overview Table

DOM Interface	HTMLAnchorElement

Examples

View live exampleThe following examples use the a element to link to files, open a file, include an image as part of a link, define an anchor, and invoke a function.

HTML

<!-- Link to a server. -->
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft home page.</a>

<!-- Link to a file in the same directory. -->
<a href="home.htm">home.htm</a>

<!-- Open a file in the window specified by TARGET. -->
<a target="viewer" HREF="sample.htm">Open in window</a>

<!-- Include an IMG element as a part of the link. -->
<a href="http://www.microsoft.com"><img src="images/bullet.png">link</a> 

<!-- Link to an anchor. -->
<a href="#anchor">anchor</a>

<!-- Define an anchor. -->
<a name="anchor">

<!-- Invoke a JScript function. -->
<a href="javascript:window.open()">link</a>

<!-- Links to a document and uses the rel attribute to add semantics to the link. -->
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" rel="license">cc by 3.0</a>

Notes

Remarks

The a element requires the href or the name attribute to be specified. Both text and images can be included within an anchor. An image that is an anchor has a border whose color indicates whether the link has been visited. To prevent this border from appearing, you can set the img element's border attribute to 0 or omit the border attribute. You can also use CSS attributes to override the default appearance of a and img elements.

Optionally the rel element may be specified to provide semantic meaning to the link target.

HTML information

Closing Tag	required
CSS Display	inline

Related specifications

Specification	Status	Related Changes
HTML 4.01	W3C Recommendation
HTML 5	W3C Working Draft

Compatibility

Desktop

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic Support	22.0	16.0	8.0	12.0	5.1

Mobile

Feature	Android	BlackBerry	Chrome for mobile	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	IE Mobile	Opera Mobile	Opera Mini	Safari Mobile
Basic Support	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)	Supported (when?)

Compatibility notes

Browser	Version	Note
Internet Explorer	8 and later	A table object does not function properly when contained within an a tag. The value of the href attribute depends on the current document compatibility mode. Internet Explorer 8 and later. When Protected Mode is enabled and a Web page contains an anchor link with a named target, Windows Internet Explorer opens the target of the link in a new window when the target has a different integrity level than the Web page containing the link. For more information, see Understanding and Working in Protected Mode Internet Explorer.

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How to Use

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