The HTML Mark Text element (<mark>
) represents text which is marked or highlighted for reference or notation purposes, due to the marked passage's relevance or importance in the enclosing context.
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.
Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content. |
---|---|
Permitted content | Phrasing content. |
Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. |
Permitted parents | Any element that accepts phrasing content. |
Implicit ARIA role | No corresponding role |
Permitted ARIA roles | Any |
DOM interface | HTMLElement |
Attributes
This element only includes the global attributes.
Usage notes
Typical use cases for <mark>
include:
- When used in a quotation (
<q>
) or block quote (<blockquote>
), it generally indicates text which is of special interest but is not marked in the original source material, or material which needs special scrutiny even though the original author didn't think it was of particular importance. Think of this like using a highlighter pen in a book to mark passages that you find of interest. - Otherwise,
<mark>
indicates a portion of the document's content which is likely to be relevant to the user's current activity. This might be used, for example, to indicate the words that matched a search operation. - Don't use
<mark>
for syntax highlighting purposes; instead, use the<span>
element with appropriate CSS applied to it.
Don't confuse <mark>
with the <strong>
element; <mark>
is used to denote content which has a degree of relevance, while <strong>
indicates spans of text of importance.
Examples
Marking text of interest
In this first example, a <mark>
element is used to mark some text within a quote which is of particular interest to the user.
<blockquote> It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, <mark>Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans</mark> to the Empireβs ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. </blockquote>
The resulting output looks like this:
Identifying context-sensitive passages
This example demonstrates using <mark>
to mark search results within a passage.
<p>It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, <mark class="match">Imperial</mark> troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the galaxy.</p> <p>Evading the dreaded <mark class="match">Imperial</mark> Starfleet, a group of freedom fighters led by Luke Skywalker has established a new secret base on the remote ice world of Hoth.</p>
To help distinguish the use of <mark>
for search results from other potential usage, this example applies the custom class "match"
to each match.
The results look like this:
Accessibility concerns
The presence of the mark
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.
mark::before, mark::after { clip-path: inset(100%); clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; white-space: nowrap; width: 1px; } mark::before { content: " [highlight start] "; } mark::after { content: " [highlight 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 highlighted would adversely affect understanding.
- Short note on making your mark (more accessible) | The Paciello Group
- Tweaking Text Level Styles | Adrian Roselli
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
HTML Living Standard The definition of '<mark>' in that specification. |
Living Standard | |
HTML5 The definition of '<mark>' in that specification. |
Recommendation |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
mark | Chrome Full support Yes | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 4 | IE Full support 9 | Opera Full support 11 | Safari Full support Yes | WebView Android Full support Yes | Chrome Android Full support Yes | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support Yes | Safari iOS Full support Yes | Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support