Template:Abbr/doc

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. As of 2021, approximately the same number of English Wikipedia page views occur on mobile vs. desktop web browsers.[1]

Usage

The template {{abbr}} and its {{tooltip}} variant take two unnamed parameters, in order:

|1= or first unnamed parameter

the term to be explained; shows as text, and may use wikimarkup, such as a link to an article about what it refers to.

|2= or second unnamed parameter

the expansion or definition or other note about the term; shows as the popup when you hover over the term. No wikimarkup can be used in this parameter.

Use explicitly numbered parameters if a parameter's content contains the equals (=) character:

• Complex example: [[Mass–energy equivalence|{{abbr|{{math|''E'' {{=}} ''mc''<sup>2</sup>}}|2=Energy = mass times the speed of light squared}}]]
• Produces: E = mc²

Named parameters (usually not needed) and the input they take:

|class=

One or more CSS classes (space-separated if more than one)

|id=

An HTML id (i.e., a #ID name here link anchor); this must be unique on the entire page.

|style=

Arbitrary inline CSS to apply to the displayed text of the term (has no effect on the tooltip text). For any input that needs to be quotation-marked (e.g. because it contains a space character), use straight single-quotes only, e.g. |style=font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;

Examples

Markup	Renders as
{{abbr|MSLP|Mean Sea Level Pressure}}	MSLP

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.

Markup	Renders as
{{abbr|UK|United Kingdom|class=country-name|id=foobar}}	UK

Markup	Renders as
[[WP:COI|{{tooltip|conflict of interest|in the specific sense employed in Wikipedia policy}}]]	conflict of interest

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

This 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 an 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.

Template data

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Abbr in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Abbr

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

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

Related pages

• {{Definition}}, a similar template
• {{Abbrlink}}, a variant of this template that includes automatic wikilinking of the term (abbreviation).
• {{Hover title}}, same as {{Tooltip}} except with parameters 1 and 2 reversed, and some parameters to control linking
• {{R-phrase}}, which generates the code number for an R-phrase (a "risk phrase", e.g. "Explosive when dry"). The R-phrase itself is included in a tooltip, and the code links to List of R-phrases.