<caption>: The Table Caption element

The HTML Table Caption element (<caption>) specifies the caption (or title) of a table, and if used is always the first child of a <table>. Its styling and physical position relative to the table may be changed using the CSS caption-side and text-align properties.

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Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

Obsolete attributes

The following attributes are obsolete and should not be used. They are documented below for reference when updating existing code and for historical interest only.

align

This enumerated attribute indicates how the caption must be aligned with respect to the table. It may have one of the following values:

left

The caption is displayed to the left of the table.

top

The caption is displayed above the table.

right

The caption is displayed to the right of the table.

bottom

The caption is displayed below the table.

Usage note: Do not use this attribute, as it has been deprecated. The <caption> element should be styled using the CSS properties caption-side and text-align.

Usage notes

When the <table> element that contains the <caption> is the only descendant of a <figure> element, you should use the <figcaption> element instead of <caption>.

Example

This simple example presents a table that includes a caption.

<table>
  <caption>Example Caption</caption>
  <tr>
    <th>Login</th>
    <th>Email</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>user1</td>
    <td>user1@sample.com</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>user2</td>
    <td>user2@sample.com</td>
  </tr>
</table>

caption { 
  caption-side: top;
  align: right;
}
table { 
  border-collapse: collapse;
  border-spacing: 0px; 
}
table, th, td { 
  border: 1px solid black; 
}

table {background: red;} do not alter caption. For that you need display: block.

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Other table-related HTML Elements: <col>, <colgroup>, <table>, <tbody>, <td>, <tfoot>, <th>, <thead>, <tr>;
• CSS properties that may be specially useful to style the <caption> element:
  • text-align, caption-side.