Revision 494587 of <bdi>

<h2 id="Summary">Summary</h2>
<p>The <em>HTML <code>&lt;bdi&gt;</code> Element</em> (or Bi-Directional Isolation Element) isolates a span of text that might be formatted in a different direction from other text outside it.</p>
<p>This element is useful when embedding text with an unknown directionality, from a database for example, inside text with a fixed directionality.</p>
<p class="note">Though the same visual effect can be achieved using the CSS rule {{cssxref("unicode-bidi")}}<code>: isolate</code> on a {{HTMLElement("span")}} or another text-formatting element, the semantic meaning is only conveyed by the <code>&lt;bdi&gt;</code> element. Especially, browsers are allowed to ignore CSS styling. In such a case, the text would still be correctly displayed using the HTML element, but will become garbage when using the CSS styling to convey semantic.</p>
<ul class="htmlelt">
 <li><dfn><a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Content_categories" title="HTML/Content_categories">Content categories</a></dfn> <a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Content_categories#Flow_content" title="HTML/Content categories#Flow content">Flow content</a>, <a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Content_categories#Phrasing_content" title="HTML/Content_categories#Phrasing_content">phrasing content</a>, palpable content.</li>
 <li><dfn>Permitted content</dfn><a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Content_categories#Phrasing_content" title="HTML/Content_categories#Flow_content">Phrasing content</a>.</li>
 <li><dfn>Tag omission</dfn> {{no_tag_omission}}</li>
 <li><dfn>Permitted parent elements</dfn> Any element that accepts <a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Content_categories#Phrasing_content" title="HTML/Content_categories#Flow_content">phrasing content</a>.</li>
 <li><dfn>DOM interface</dfn> {{domxref("HTMLElement")}}</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="Attributes">Attributes</h2>
<p>Like all other HTML elements, this element has the <a href="/en-US/docs/HTML/Global_attributes" title="HTML/Global attributes">global attributes</a>, with a slight semantic difference: the <strong>dir</strong> attribute is not inherited. If not set, its default value is the <code>auto</code> which let the browser decide the direction based on the element's content.</p>
<h2 id="Example">Example</h2>
<pre class="brush: html">
&lt;p dir="ltr"&gt;This arabic word &lt;bdi&gt;ARABIC_PLACEHOLDER&lt;/bdi&gt; is automatically displayed right-to-left.&lt;/p&gt;
</pre>
<h3 id="Result">Result</h3>
<p dir="ltr">This arabic word REDLOHECALP_CIBARA is automatically displayed right-to-left.</p>
<h2 id="Specifications" name="Specifications">Specifications</h2>
<table class="standard-table">
 <thead>
  <tr>
   <th scope="col">Specification</th>
   <th scope="col">Status</th>
   <th scope="col">Comment</th>
  </tr>
 </thead>
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('HTML WHATWG', 'text-level-semantics.html#the-bdi-element', '&lt;bdi&gt;')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('HTML WHATWG')}}</td>
   <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('HTML5 W3C', 'the-bdi-element.html#the-bdi-element', '&lt;bdi&gt;')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('HTML5 W3C')}}</td>
   <td>&nbsp;</td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</h2>
<p>{{CompatibilityTable}}</p>
<div id="compat-desktop">
 <table class="compat-table">
  <tbody>
   <tr>
    <th>Feature</th>
    <th>Chrome</th>
    <th>Firefox (Gecko)</th>
    <th>Internet Explorer</th>
    <th>Opera</th>
    <th>Safari</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Basic support</td>
    <td>16</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoDesktop("10.0")}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
   </tr>
  </tbody>
 </table>
</div>
<div id="compat-mobile">
 <table class="compat-table">
  <tbody>
   <tr>
    <th>Feature</th>
    <th>Android</th>
    <th>Firefox Mobile (Gecko)</th>
    <th>IE Mobile</th>
    <th>Opera Mobile</th>
    <th>Safari Mobile</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Basic support</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoMobile("10.0")}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
   </tr>
  </tbody>
 </table>
</div>
<h2 dir="ltr" id="See_also">See also</h2>
<ul>
 <li>Related HTML element: {{HTMLElement("bdo")}}</li>
 <li>Related HTML properties: {{cssxref("direction")}}, {{cssxref("unicode-bidi")}}</li>
</ul>
<p>{{HTMLRef}}</p>