<desc>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

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.

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>

Attributes

This element only includes global attributes

Usage context

CategoriesDescriptive element
Permitted contentAny elements or character data

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2
# DescriptionAndTitleElements

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
desc

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also