<desc>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The <desc> SVG element provides an accessible, long-text description of any SVG container element or graphics element.

Text in a <desc> element is not rendered as part of the graphic. If the element can be described by visible text, it is possible to reference that text with the aria-describedby attribute. If aria-describedby is used, it will take precedence over <desc>.

The hidden text of a <desc> element can also be concatenated with the visible text of other elements using multiple IDs in an aria-describedby value. In that case, the <desc> element must provide an ID for reference.

Usage context

CategoriesDescriptive element
Permitted contentAny elements or character data

Attributes

This element only includes global attributes.

DOM Interface

This element implements the SVGDescElement interface.

Example

html
<svg viewBox="0 0 10 10" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <circle cx="5" cy="5" r="4">
    <desc>
      I'm a circle and that description is here to demonstrate how I can be
      described, but is it really necessary to describe a simple circle like me?
    </desc>
  </circle>
</svg>

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
# DescriptionAndTitleElements

Browser compatibility

See also