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  5. <embed>

<embed> HTML embed external content element

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 <embed> HTML element embeds external content at the specified point in the document. This content is handled by the browser or an external application.

Try it

<embed
  type="image/jpeg"
  src="/shared-assets/images/examples/flowers.jpg"
  width="250"
  height="200" />

Attributes

This element's attributes include the global attributes.

height

The displayed height of the resource, in CSS pixels. This must be an absolute value; percentages are not allowed.

src

The URL of the resource being embedded.

type

The MIME type of the embedded resource.

width

The displayed width of the resource, in CSS pixels. This must be an absolute value; percentages are not allowed.

Usage notes

Modern browsers no longer support browser plug-ins such as Flash, but <embed> can still display content handled by the browser itself, such as PDFs in a built-in PDF viewer.

For PDF previews, consider <object> or <iframe>. Unlike <object>, <embed> cannot contain fallback content. Unlike <iframe>, it has no attributes that control loading.

You can use the object-position property to adjust the positioning of the embedded object within the element's frame.

Note: The object-fit property has no effect on <embed> elements.

Accessibility

Use the title attribute on an embed element to label its content so that people navigating with assistive technology such as a screen reader can understand what it contains. The title's value should concisely describe the embedded content. Without a title, they may not be able to determine what its embedded content is. This context shift can be confusing and time-consuming, especially if the embed element contains interactive content like video or audio.

Examples

html
<embed
  type="video/quicktime"
  src="movie.mov"
  width="640"
  height="480"
  title="Title of my video" />

Technical summary

Content categories Flow content, phrasing content, embedded content, interactive content, palpable content.
Permitted content None; it is a void element.
Tag omission Must have a start tag and must not have an end tag.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts embedded content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles application, document, img, none, presentation
DOM interface HTMLEmbedElement

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# the-embed-element

Browser compatibility

See also

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