This represents the caption for a table. <CAPTION> elements should appear inside the <TABLE> but not inside table rows or cells. The caption accepts an alignment attribute that defaults to ALIGN=top but can be explicitly set to ALIGN=bottom. Like table cells, any document body HTML can appear in a caption. Captions are, by default horizontally centred with respect to the table, and the may have their lines broken to fit within the width of the table.

The <CAPTION> element can accept the following attributes:

ALIGN="top|bottom|left|center|right"
The ALIGN attribute controls whether the caption appears above or below the table, using the top and bottom values, defaulting to top. The Internet Explorer allows the <CAPTION> element to be left, right or center aligned. For the Internet Explorer to set the <CAPTION> at the top or bottom of the table, it is necessary to use the VALIGN attribute.

VALIGN="top|bottom"
The Internet Explorer allows use of the VALIGN attribute inside the <CAPTION> element. It specifies whether the caption text should be displayed at the top or bottom of the table.

TITLE="informational ToolTip"
The Internet Explorer 4.0 (and above) specific TITLE attribute is used for informational purposes. If present, the value of the TITLE attribute is presented as a ToolTip when the users mouse hovers over the <CAPTION> section.

LANG="language setting"
The LANG attribute can be used to specify what language the <CAPTION> element is using. It accepts any valid ISO standard language abbreviation (for example "en" for English, "de" for German etc.) For more details, see the Document Localisation section for more details.

LANGUAGE="Scripting language"
The LANGUAGE attribute can be used to expressly specify which scripting language Internet Explorer 4.0 uses to interpret any scripting information used in the <CAPTION> element. It can accept values of vbscript, vbs, javascript or jscript. The first two specify the scripting language as Visual Basic Script, the latter two specify it as using Javascript (the default scripting language used if no LANGUAGE attribute is set.

CLASS="Style Sheet class name"
The CLASS attribute is used to specify the <CAPTION> element as using a particular style sheet class. See the Style Sheets topic for details.

STYLE="In line style setting"
As well as using previously defined style sheet settings, the <CAPTION> element can have in-line stylings attached to it. See the Style Sheets topic for details.

ID="Unique element identifier"
The ID attribute can be used to either reference a unique style sheet identifier, or to provide a unique name for the <CAPTION> element for scripting purposes. Any <CAPTION> element with an ID attribute can be directly manipulated in script by referencing its ID attribute, rather than working through the All collection to determine the element. See the Scripting introduction topic for more information.

Every <CAPTION> element in a document is an object that can be manipulated through scripting. Note that scripting of the <CAPTION> element/object is only supported by Internet Explorer 4.0 in its Dynamic HTML object model. Netscape does not support direct scripting of the <CAPTION> element at all.

<CAPTION...> Properties
Of the standard Dynamic HTML properties, the <CAPTION...> element/object supports the following: className, document, id, innerText, isTextEdit, lang, language, offsetHeight, offsetLeft, offsetParent, offsetTop, offsetWidth, outerText, parentElement, parentTextEdit, sourceIndex, style, tagName and title. Details of these can be found in the standard Dynamic HTML properties topics.
The <CAPTION> element also supports the following properties:

align
The align property reflects (or sets) the value of the ALIGN attribute described above.

clientHeight
The clientHeight property reflects the height (in pixels) of the contents of the <CAPTION> element.

clientWidth
The clientWidth property reflects the width (in pixels) of the contents of the <CAPTION> element.

vAlign
The vAlign property reflects (or sets) the value of the VALIGN attribute described above.

<CAPTION...> Methods
The <CAPTION...> element/object supports all of the standard Dynamic HTML methods (i.e. click, contains, getAttribute, insertAdjacentHTML, insertAdjacentText, removeAttribute, scrollIntoView and setAttribute). Details of these can be found in the standard Dynamic HTML Methods topics.
The <CAPTION> element also supports the following methods:

blur
The blur event can be used to force the users focus away from the referenced <CAPTION> element, firing the onblur event.

focus
The focus method can be used to pass the users focus to the referenced <CAPTION> element, forcing the onfocus event to fire.

<CAPTION...> Events
The <CAPTION...> element/object supports all of the standard Dynamic HTML events (i.e. onclick, ondblclick, ondragstart, onfilterchange, onhelp, onkeydown, onkeypress, onkeyup, onmousedown, onmousemove, onmouseout, onmouseover, onmouseup and onselectstart). Details of these can be found in the standard Dynamic HTML events topics.
Also, the <CAPTION> element supports the following events:

onblur
When the referenced <CAPTION> element loses the users focus, the onblur event is fired, executing any script events that are attached to it.

onfocus
When the user passes the focus to any <CAPTION> element, the onfocus event is fired for that element.

onresize
The onresize event is fired whenever the contents of the <CAPTION> element are resized, by window movement, or dynamically through scripting.

© 1995-1998, Stephen Le Hunte

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