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The following tables compare HTML compatibility and support for a number of layout engines. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.

Only HTML 4 and XHTML 1 served as text/html (so called "HTML compatible" XHTML) are considered. XHTML 2 is not considered as it is a redefinition of XHTML, which is not backward compatible. For more XHTML-related comparisons, please refer to comparison of layout engines (XHTML).

Version number, if possible, is provided for feature that is fully supported (based on HTML 4.01). Proprietary extensions are not included.

Contents 1 Engine nomenclature 2 DOCTYPE sniffing 2.1 General DOCTYPE sniffing notes 2.2 Gecko DOCTYPE sniffing notes 3 Global structure elements 4 Text elements 4.1 Gecko text element notes 5 List elements 6 Table elements 7 Link elements 8 Multimedia elements 8.1 Trident multimedia element notes 9 Frame elements 10 Form elements 10.1 KHTML form elements notes 10.2 Trident form elements notes 11 Presentational elements 12 Stylesheet elements 13 Script elements 14 Language elements 14.1 KHTML language element notes 15 Generic attributes 16 References 17 External links

Layout Engine	Used By
Trident	Internet Explorer
Tasman	Internet Explorer for Mac
Gecko	All Mozilla software, including Firefox; GNOME's Galeon
WebCore	Mac OS X (Safari)
KHTML	KDE
Presto	Opera
iCab	iCab

The way that the engines determine standards mode, quirks mode, or almost standards mode.

		Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
XHTML 1.1
Strict		Standards	?	Standards	?	Standards	Standards	?
XHTML 1.0
Strict		Standards	?	Standards	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
Transitional		Standards	?	Almost	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
Frameset		Standards	?	Almost	?	Standards	Standards	?
HTML 4.01
Strict		Standards	?	Standards	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
		Standards	?	Standards	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
Transitional		Standards	Standards	Almost	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
		Quirks	Quirks	Quirks	Quirks	Quirks	Quirks	?
Frameset		Standards	?	Almost	?	Standards	Standards	?
		Quirks	?	Quirks	?	Quirks	Quirks	?
HTML 4.0
Strict		Standards	Standards	Standards	?	Standards	Standards	?
		Standards	Quirks	Standards	Standards	Standards	Standards	?
Transitional		Standards	?	Quirks	?	Quirks	Standards	?
		Quirks	?	Quirks	?	Quirks	Quirks	?
Frameset		Standards	?	Quirks	?	Quirks	Standards	?
		Quirks	?	Quirks	?	Quirks	Quirks	?

1. Quirks mode — Emulates non-standard behaviors in Navigator 4 and MSIE. Generally used in HTML without DOCTYPE and HTML 3 or below. The amount of emulation differs between the layout engines, e.g. Gecko and Presto use the standardized W3C box layout model even in quirks mode. Thus the results are quite unpredictable in this mode.
2. Standards mode — Follows W3C's recommendations.

1. Almost standards mode — Implements the vertical sizing of table cells traditionally and not rigorously according to the CSS2 specification. Almost standards mode was created after 1.0 and 1.1alpha, but before 1.0.1 and 1.1beta. This mode is, however, similar to the standard modes of Trident, Presto and WebCore. Before almost standards mode was created these DOCTYPEs triggered standards mode.

The global structure of the document.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Basic structure
html	5.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
head	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
body	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Metadata
title	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
meta	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Headings
h1	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
h2	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
h3	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
h4	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
h5	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
h6	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Grouping elements
div	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
span	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Elements that represent text.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Phrase
em	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
strong	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
dfn	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
code	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
samp	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
kbd	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
var	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
cite	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
abbr	7.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
acronym	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Quotations
blockquote	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
q	No	Yes	1.8	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Subscripts and superscripts
sub	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
sup	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Lines and paragraphs
p	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
pre	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
br	5.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Marking document changes
ins	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
del	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

1. q — Does not support nested quotes prior to 1.8 [1].

Elements that represent lists of information.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Unordered and ordered lists
ul	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
ol	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
li	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Definition lists
dl	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
dt	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
dd	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Elements that represent tabular information.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Basic table elements
table	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
caption	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
tr	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
th	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
td	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Row groups
thead	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
tfoot	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	?
tbody	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Column groups
colgroup	4.0	?	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
col	4.0	?	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Hyperlinks, one of the primary forces driving the success of the World Wide Web.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
a	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
link	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
base	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Multimedia features including images, applets , video clips, and other HTML documents.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Images
img	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Generic inclusion
object	Incorrect	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
param	6.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Image maps
map	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
area	5.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Deprecated
applet	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

1. object — For images, a frame will be added to the object. Other content types are not supported and the element is incorrectly implemented as an ActiveX wrapper. Nested objects fallback mechanism is not supported prior to version 7. [2] [3]

Elements to present documents in multiple views, which may be independent windows or subwindows. Frame layout is only available in the frameset profiles. All frames are not available in XHTML 1.1 (use generic object elements instead for inline frames).

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Frame layout
frameset	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
frame	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
noframes	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Inline frames
iframe	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

The user interface controls for interacting with the web server.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Basic structure
form	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
fieldset	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
legend	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Form controls and labels
input	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
textarea	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
button	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
label	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	3.4.2	7.0	Yes
List boxes (combo boxes)
select	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
optgroup	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
option	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

1. label — Label is focusable prior to 3.4.2.

1. button — Button's value attribute is not supported. Button's innerHTML/CDATA is returned instead.

Elements that specify presentational information. Although not all elements are deprecated, their use is discouraged in favor of stylesheets. Deprecated elements are not available in the strict profiles and XHTML 1.1.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Font styles
b	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
i	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
big	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
small	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
tt	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Horizontal rules
hr	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Deprecated
u	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
s	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
strike	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

The ways to apply stylesheets (CSS) to the document.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Using link element	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
style	5.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Elements for embedding client-side script (JavaScript). See also DOM Events for a list of attributes used to attach an event handler to an element.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
script	6.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

Elements related to language information.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
bdo	5.0	?	1.0	Yes	Partial	7.0	?

1. bdo — While alphabetic and alphanumeric words are affected, numeric (numbers only) words are not.

Attributes that can be used in any elements.

	Trident	Tasman	Gecko	WebCore	KHTML	Presto	iCab
Element identifiers
id	3.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
class	3.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Inline styles
style	3.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Advisory information
title	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
Language information
lang	4.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes
dir	5.0	Yes	1.0	Yes	Yes	7.0	Yes

• MSDN Library. CSS Enhancements in Internet Explorer 6. Retrieved on May 1, 2005.
• Mozilla Developer Documentation. Mozilla's DOCTYPE sniffing. Retrieved on May 1, 2005.
• Opera Documentation. The Opera 7 and 8 DOCTYPE Switches. Retrieved on May 1, 2005.
• Opera Documentation. Specification support - HTML. Retrieved on May 1, 2005.
• O'Reilly Network. Use the Right Doctype. Retrieved on May 1, 2005.
• Apple Developer Connection. Safari HTML Reference. Retrieved on July 14, 2005.

• webref.info HTML Reference
• Activating the Right Layout Mode Using the Doctype Declaration
• Doctypes and their respective layout mode
• HTML Support History
• Web browser HTML support
• W3Schools XHTML 1.0 Reference

v • d • e Layout engines
List of layout engines	Trident · Presto · Gecko · Tasman · WebCore · KHTML · iCab · Prince · GtkHTML · Gzilla · Boxely · Tkhtml · Robin
Comparison of layout engines	HTML · XML · XHTML · Graphics · CSS · DOM · HTML 5 · ECMAScript · SVG