<link> tag

HTML <link> tag

The <link> tag links external style sheets.

The external style sheets helps to style the HTML document.

You must place this tag inside the <head> section of the HTML document. The <link> tag can appear any number of times.

Syntax:
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”testfile.css”>

Example

<head>
 <title>Page Title</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="testfile.css">
</head>

CSS Default Value

display: none;

Difference between HTML4.01, XHTML and HTML5

HTML4 XHTML HTML5
Does not have an End tag Must use End tag as <link .... />. HTML5 does not support all the attributes of HTML4.01. A new size attribute is also added.

Attributes used with <link> tag

Attribute Description
crossorigin This attribute controls the cross-origin requests on the <link> element. It can either take a value of use-credentials or anonymous.
href Sets the URL/Location of the target document which is linked from the current document.
hreflang This attribute defines the language of the text of the target document which is linked from the current document. It uses a language_code for this purpose. Examples are - hrefland="en", hrefland="fr" etc. This is a 2 digit language code.
media Uses a media query to display the media device where the target link document will be displayed.
sizes To control the size of the target icon. Most of the browsers does not support this attribute.
type To define the type of media for the target linked document using a media_tpe.
media It specifies that for what purpose of linked document is optimized. This attribute also accepts several values. It describes the purpose of target URL. It can accept values as -
  • alternate
  • author
  • help
  • icon
  • license
  • prev
  • next
  • search
  • stylesheet
  • pingback
  • preconnect
  • preload
  • prefetch
  • dns-prefetch
  • prerender
  • charset To define the character encoding of the target document which is linked from the current document. It uses a character_encoding for this purpose.
    (HTML5 does not support this attribute when it is used with the <link> tag).
    rev To define a reverse relationship between the target document to the current document.
    (HTML5 does not support this attribute when it is used with the <link> tag).
    target To define where the target document(linked document) will open. It will take values as -
  • _blank - to open in a new tab/window.
  • _parent - to open in a parent frameset.
  • _self - to open in a same frameset.
  • _top - to open in full screen window.
  • framename - to open inside a particular frame name.

  • (HTML5 does not support this attribute when it is used with the <link> tag).

    Global Attributes

    The <link>  tag supports Global attributes.

    Event Attributes

    The <link>  tag supports Event attributes.

    Supporting Browsers

    supporting-browsers for tags

    Related Tags

    <head> and <style>  tags.

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