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Deprecated tags
HTML is an evolving system of mark-up tags, and like everything that evolves, this means shedding old things as well as picking up new characteristics. As improved methods are developed, so some old tags are deprecated; that is, no longer recommended for use by the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium - the body responsible for setting the standards and protocols which make the Web a functioning network). Deprecated tags (and attributes) don't suddenly stop working overnight. You'll find in the list below several tags and attributes which I've introduced on this site, and used myself, in many cases. In part this is because the reason many of these are deprecated is because they've been superseded by style sheet controls for presentation attributes: colour, alignment, background images, and so on. But some older browsers do not support style sheets, and in some cases, it remains easier and more efficient to use attributes. If you want an accessible, readable site - as several other pages in this lesson have argued - you still require a familiarity with these tags and attributes. It would have been very silly of me not to teach them at all. As the HTML 4.0 specification says, browsers "should continue to support deprecated elements for reasons of backwards compatibilty". In other words to ensure a page can be read by old browsers as well as new ones. But anyone taking web design at all seriously should be well aware of which tags are deprecated as these may in future become obsolete. They should therefore be used sparingly if at all. This particularly applies to the first one on this list below: Deprecated tags
Please also see the "important note" at the bottom of the page on the <IMG> tag. Deprecated attributesThis list is more extensive. As a rough guide, almost all attributes that endow stylistic features only are deprecated. The list below should make the distinction clear, but the basic rule is, if it can go in a style sheet, it really should, and the attribute is deprecated. But an attribute that is not stylistic (such as ALT, HREF, SRC) will remain part of the standard. Mind you, this isn't a hard and fast rule: an attribute like CELLPADDING (which could be replicated by padding elements in style sheets) has not yet been officially deprecated. Don't ask me why... Note that attributes which have not appeared anywhere on this web site are not listed below. Explanatory notes are added where necessary. ALIGN - deprecated in all cases (paragraphs, headings, images, tables, etc...)
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Material on this site is © Drew Whitworth, 2005 Permission will usually be given to reproduce material from this site for non-commercial purposes, if credit is given. For enquiries, e-mail Drew at andrew [dot] whitworth [at] manchester [dot] ac [dot] uk.