<del>: The Deleted Text element

The HTML <del> element represents a range of text that has been deleted from a document. This can be used when rendering "track changes" or source code diff information, for example. The <ins> element can be used for the opposite purpose: to indicate text that has been added to the document.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

This element is often (but need not be) rendered by applying a strike-through style to the text.

Attributes

This element's attributes include the global attributes.

cite

A URI for a resource that explains the change (for example, meeting minutes).

datetime

This attribute indicates the time and date of the change and must be a valid date string with an optional time. If the value cannot be parsed as a date with an optional time string, the element does not have an associated time stamp. For the format of the string without a time, see Format of a valid date string in Date and time formats used in HTML. The format of the string if it includes both date and time is covered in Format of a valid local date and time string in Date and time formats used in HTML.

Examples

<p><del>This text has been deleted</del>,
here is the rest of the paragraph.</p>
<del><p>This paragraph has been deleted.</p></del>

Result

This text has been deleted, here is the rest of the paragraph.

This paragraph has been deleted.

Accessibility concerns

The presence of the del element is not announced by most screen reading technology in its default configuration. It can be made to be announced by using the CSS content property, along with the ::before and ::after pseudo-elements.

del::before, 
del::after {
  clip-path: inset(100%);
  clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);
  height: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: absolute;
  white-space: nowrap;
  width: 1px;
}

del::before {
  content: " [deletion start] ";
}

del::after {
  content: " [deletion end] ";
}

Some people who use screen readers deliberately disable announcing content that creates extra verbosity. Because of this, it is important to not abuse this technique and only apply it in situations where not knowing content has been deleted would adversely affect understanding.

• Short note on making your mark (more accessible) | The Paciello Group
• Tweaking Text Level Styles | Adrian Roselli

Specifications

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table in this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

See also

• <ins> element for insertions into a text

• <s> element for strikethrough separate from representing deletion of text