Template:Abbr

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For inline cleanup templates requesting definitions or explanations, see {{Definition}} and {{Explain}}.

The template {{Abbr}} is used to write an abbreviation (including an acronym or initialism) with its meaning. It is a wrapper for the HTML element <abbr>...</abbr>, to create a tooltip indicating the meaning of the term. The {{Tooltip}} variant is the same, except it uses the <span>...</span> element, and is for providing mouse-over notes about non-abbreviations.

Please note: Do not use {{abbr}} or <abbr> to mark up material other than abbreviations (including acronyms). Using it to generate tooltips elsewhere is a misuse of the underlying HTML and causes accessibility problems. For general-purpose tooltips, use {{tooltip}} instead.

Note that readers on mobile devices typically do not have a mouse to hover with, and so generally cannot see tooltip contents. Mobile users may access tooltips via a tap by modifying the settings for Reference Tooltips, but this is not so useful on linked text, because the same tap that brings up the tooltip also follows the hyperlink to the destination page. As of 2021, approximately the same number of English Wikipedia page views occur on mobile vs. desktop web browsers.[1]

Usage

{{Abbr|text to display inline in the article|pop-up tip}}

Parameters

Two unnamed (positional) parameters (required) and three named parameters (optional):

• |1= – the term to be explained; displays as text; wiki markup is allowed, such as a link to an article
• |2= – the tooltip/pop-up (no wiki markup allowed)
• |class= one or more CSS classes (space-separated if more than one)
• |id= – an HTML id must be unique on the entire page.
• |style= – CSS to apply to the displayed text (no effect on tooltip/popup). Any style values with embedded blanks must be single-quoted, e.g. |style=font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;

Examples

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When hovering over the text "MSLP", something like Mean Sea Level Pressure will appear as a tooltip in most browsers. Popular screen readers, used by visually impaired readers, give the meaning in a different way.

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Linking must be done a particular way

To wiki-link the abbreviation being marked up by this template, wrap the template in the link, not vice versa, or the meaning will not appear in some browsers, including Chrome.

Compatibility	Markup	Renders as
Compatible	[[Knockout#Technical knockout|{{abbr|TKO|technical knockout}}]]	TKO
Less compatible	{{abbr|[[Knockout#Technical knockout|TKO]]|technical knockout}}	TKO

Do not link, or use any other wikimarkup or HTML markup, in the meaning (popup) – only plain text.
The mouse-over popup for the meaning text is created by a title= attribute inside an <abbr> HTML element's opening tag, so it cannot itself contain any HTML (or markup that resolves to HTML when rendered). This includes simple things like ''italics''.

Accessibility and HTML validity concerns

{{Abbr}} template is intended only for use with abbreviations (including acronyms and initialisms).

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines contain guidelines for using the <abbr> element generated by this template; see section H28: Providing definitions for abbreviations by using the abbr and acronym elements.

Furthermore, the HTML specifications (both those of the W3C and WHATWG) strictly define the <abbr> element as reserved for markup of abbreviations. Abusing it for mouse-over tooltips breaks our semantic markup and makes our content invalid HTML (technically, "not well-formed"; it will pass a basic automated validator test because such a tool can't tell that the logical application of the data to the structure isn't correct, only that tags are nested properly, etc.).

Redirects

The following template names will redirect to {{Abbr}}:

• {{Abbrv}}
• {{Define}}

{{Tooltip}} is a separate template sharing the same documentation.

Maintenance categories

• Category:Pages using tooltip with unknown parameters (0)

Template data

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools.

TemplateData for Abbr

This template defines an abbreviation or acronym, by creating a tooltip that is displayed on mouse-over.

[Edit template data]

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Term	1	Shows as text	Line	required
Meaning	2	Shows as a mouse-over tooltip	String	required
CSS	style	applies the specified CSS directives to the content of parameter 1	String	optional
Class	class	Adds a one or more CSS classes	String	optional
ID	id	Adds an HTML id (must be unique in the page)	String	optional

See also

• {{Abbrlink}}, a variant of this template that includes automatic wikilinking of the term (abbreviation).
• {{dfn}}

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Abbr/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.