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First posted :
03/24/2008
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The <abbr> and <acronym> Tag (XHTML Reference)
Introduction
The <abbr> (abbreviated) and <acronym> tag fulfils both the same task. They can be used to define full forms of words like www,
ftp, CD. These words are called acronyms.
By using one of these tags you can make
your pages more useful for browsers or search engines. Search engines will find
your pages easier and faster if they include the full form of the acronyms for example: CD.
Translator engines can easily use the abbreviations and spell checkers won’t
complain about EU or shorter forms.
This can be very useful for users who don't know the full form of some acronyms. They just need to hover the mouse
over the acronym and it will show the full form as a tool tip. To achieve that
you have to use the title attribute of the tag. It will also save you time so
that you do not need to create an extra glossary for all those acronyms. To
display the acronym properly I suggest that you use it with a CSS style sheet,
so that the acronym is formatted with a dashed bottom border.
Furthermore it is helpful to use the help cursor (cursor:help) when the user hovers
over the acronym.
Using both of these recommendations the reader will always know
that the word is an acronym and that the full form will be shown as a tool tip.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0
Strict//EN"
