<rt>

The annotation text in a ruby element: pronunciation or meaning displayed above the base text.

Display
ruby-text
Closing tag
Required
Permitted content
Phrasing content
On this page

Example

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HTML
<p lang="zh" style="font-size: 2rem;">
  <ruby>学<rt>xué</rt>习<rt>xí</rt></ruby>
</p>
<p>Chinese for "to learn." Each character has its own annotation here.</p>
Preview

Definition and usage

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The <rt> element (from ruby text) holds the annotation’s content inside a <ruby> element, most often its pronunciation. The browser displays it in a smaller font above the base text, and next to it in vertical text.

Each <rt> refers to the base text that comes before it: from the start of <ruby> or from the previous <rt>. So you can give an annotation to each character separately, or one to a whole word. Separate annotations let the browser break the line between characters.

<rt> can only appear inside <ruby>. The closing tag can technically be omitted if it’s immediately followed by another <rt>, an <rp>, or the end of the <ruby> element, but it’s more readable to write it.

Syntax

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Syntax
<ruby>字<rt>zì</rt></ruby>

Attributes

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This element has no attributes of its own. It supports the global attributes, such as class, id and hidden.

More examples

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One annotation for a whole word
HTML
<p lang="ja" style="font-size: 2rem;">
  <ruby>東京<rt>とうきょう</rt></ruby>
</p>
<p>Tokyo in Japanese, with the pronunciation written in hiragana above the whole word.</p>
Preview

Default CSS

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Most browsers display this element with these default styles:

CSS
rt {
  display: ruby-text;
}

Browser support

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Widely available

Works in all modern browsers, phones included. You can use it without worry.

  • Chrome
  • Edge
  • Firefox
  • Safari

Good practices

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  • Annotations should be short: a pronunciation or a single word of translation.
  • Only place <rt> inside <ruby>.
  • You can change the annotation’s size and color in CSS, e.g. rt { font-size: 0.6em; color: gray; }.

Related entries

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