HTML on the Archive

Allowed HTML

a, abbr, acronym, address, [align], [alt], [axis], b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, cite, [class], code, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, dfn, div, dl, dt, em, figcaption, figure, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, [height], hr, [href], i, img, ins, kbd, li, [name], ol, p, pre, q, rp, rt, ruby, s, samp, small, span, [src], strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, [title], tr, tt, u, ul, var, [width]

How Do We Format Your HTML?

When you enter HTML into the archive, we do some cleanup on it to make sure that it is safe (so spammers and hackers cannot upload badness) and try and do some basic formatting both for your convenience and for accessibility reasons. Here are the formatting steps we take:

When you edit your HTML after you first put it in, you will see the results of our formatting work, so you can correct any mistakes our formatter might have made. Please note that the best way to get good results is to put in good HTML -- that is how you can be sure your story will look right across various browsers, screen readers, mobile devices, and downloads.

Good HTML means HTML that labels what the text is supposed to be -- so if you have paragraphs, they should be inside paragraph tags, not just separated with break tags. If you have emphasized text, it should be inside em tags. If you have a list of items, each item should be inside list tags. If you don't have a list of items, you shouldn't have list tags. :) (We are putting together a set of more detailed helpful references about this, but this is the basic idea.)

If you find yourself putting in HTML that doesn't mean the right thing, in order to get a particular visual effect, please resist! The work skin feature allows you to apply custom CSS to works, and that lets you make them look just about any way you want them to (and is easier if you are starting from good HTML).

Some specific recommendations:

For headings, use heading tags: h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6
For emphasis, use emphasis tags em, strong
To quote poetry, phrases or titles use quote tags: blockquote, q, cite