The HTML Disclosure Summary element (<summary>
) element specifies a summary, caption, or legend for a <details>
element's disclosure box. Clicking the <summary>
element toggles the state of the parent <details>
element open and closed.
Permitted content | Phrasing content or one element of Heading content |
---|---|
Tag omission | None, both the start tag and the end tag are mandatory. |
Permitted parents | The <details> element. |
Implicit ARIA role | button |
Permitted ARIA roles | No role permitted |
DOM interface | HTMLElement |
This element only includes the global attributes.
The <summary>
element's contents can be any heading content, plain text, or HTML that can be used within a paragraph.
A <summary>
element may only be used as the first child of a <details>
element. When the user clicks on the summary, the parent <details>
element is toggled open or closed, and then a toggle
event is sent to the <details>
element, which can be used to let you know when this state change occurs.
If a <details>
element's first child is not a <summary>
element, the user agent will use a default string (typically "Details") as the label for the disclosure box.
Per the HTML specification, the default style for <summary>
elements includes display: list-item
. This makes it possible to change or remove the icon displayed as the disclosure widget next to the label from the default, which is typically a triangle.
You can also change the style to display: block
to remove the disclosure triangle.
See the Browser compatibility section for details, as not all browsers support full functionality of this element yet.
Below are some examples showing <summary>
in use. You can find more examples in the documentation for the <details>
element.
A simple example showing the use of <summary>
in a <details>
element:
<details open> <summary>Overview</summary> <ol> <li>Cash on hand: $500.00</li> <li>Current invoice: $75.30</li> <li>Due date: 5/6/19</li> </ol> </details>
You can use heading elements in <summary>
, like this:
<details open> <summary><h4>Overview</h4></summary> <ol> <li>Cash on hand: $500.00</li> <li>Current invoice: $75.30</li> <li>Due date: 5/6/19</li> </ol> </details>
This currently has some spacing issues that could be addressed using CSS.
Warning: Because the <summary>
element has a default role of button (which strips all roles from child elements), this example will not work for users of assistive technologies such as screen readers. The <h4>
will have its role removed and thus will not be treated as a heading for these users.
This example adds some semantics to the <summary>
element to indicate the label as important:
<details open> <summary><strong>Overview</strong></summary> <ol> <li>Cash on hand: $500.00</li> <li>Current invoice: $75.30</li> <li>Due date: 5/6/19</li> </ol> </details>
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
HTML Living Standard The definition of '<summary>' in that specification. | Living Standard | |
HTML 5.1 The definition of '<summary>' in that specification. | Recommendation | Initial definition |
Desktop | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
summary |
12 | 79 | 49 | No | 15 | 6 |
display: list-item |
No
|
No
|
49 | No | No | No |
Mobile | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
summary |
4 | Yes | 49 | 14 | Yes | Yes |
display: list-item |
No | No
|
49 | No | No | No |
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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/summary