HTML Textarea Tag
In HTML, to create a multi-line plain editing control <textarea> tag is used.
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The
<textarea>tag is useful when you want to allow users to enter a sizeable amount of free-form text, for example, a comment on a review or feedback form. -
The
<textarea>tag also accepts several attributes common to form<input>s, such asautocomplete,autofocus,disabled,placeholder,readonly, andrequired. -
Also, this is an Inline element.
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To specify the size of textarea; we use
colsandrowsattributes of<textarea>tag. -
It is recommended to give labels using
<label>tag to a textarea.
HTML<textarea> Tag Syntax and Usage
The <textarea> element requires the start(opening) tag and end(closing) tag.
Following is the syntax for using the textarea tag in your HTML code:
<textarea>
...content here
</textarea>
HTML <textarea> Tag Attributes
The <textarea> tag supports both global and event attributes and some of the common attributes are given below.
| Attributes | Description |
| name | Inside <textarea> area tag, the name attribute is used to specify the name of the control. |
| minlength | The minimum number of characters (Unicode code points) required that the user should enter. |
| maxlength | The Maximum number of characters (Unicode code points) required that the user should enter. |
| cols | This attribute is used to specify the width of the textarea. |
| rows | This attribute is used to specify the number of visible lines in a textarea |
| wrap | This attribute indicates how the control wraps text. Possible values are: hard, soft and off |
| spellcheck | Specifies whether the textarea is subject to spell checking by the underlying browser/OS; true, false and default are three values of spellcheck attribute |
| required | This attribute ensures that it is a required filled or this field must be filled |
| readonly | This attribute specifies that a given textarea is a read-only type |
| autofocus | This attribute specifies textarea gets focus automatically whenever the web page gets loaded. |
| form | This attribute specifies the form to which textarea belongs to |
HTML <textarea> Tag Basic Example
Below we have a basic example showing how we use the HTML textarea tag.
Browser Support for HTML<textarea> Tag
Following browsers support this attribute:
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Google Chrome 6.0+
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Internet Explorer 9.0+
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Firefox 4+
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Opera 11.1+
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Safari 5.0+