Description

The HTML element <embed> is used to define a container for an external resource, which can be a web page, picture, media player, or plug-in application.

However, we have better options to include most of these resource types as mentioned below.

  • Plug-ins are no more supported by modern browsers
  • It's suggested to use the <img> element to include a picture
  • It's suggested to use the <iframe> element to include a web page
  • It's better to use the <audio> element to include audio into a web page
  • It's better to use the <video> element to include video into a web page

So, use the <embed> element only if you don't find a specific element for the resource type you need to embed into a web page.

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is displayed as a Block element.
Contents None. It is an empty element.
Tags Only an opening tag is required.
Versions HTML5

Syntax

Here is the basic syntax of the <embed> element.

<embed>

Examples

In the below example, the <embed> element is used to include a picture, a web page, and a video.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>HTML Element - embed</h1>
    <embed type="image/jpg" src="picture.jpg" width="400" height="300">
    <embed type="text/html" src="home.html" width="500" height="400">
    <embed type="video/webm" src="video.mp4" width="300" height="200">
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <embed> tag.

Attribute Type Details
Element-Specific Attributes The tag <embed> has some element-specific attributes listed in the below table.
Global Attributes Like all other HTML tags, the tag <embed> supports the HTML Global Attributes.
Event Attributes The tag <embed> also supports the HTML Event Attributes.

Here is a list of attributes that are specific to the <dialog> element.

Attribute Value Description
width number (in pixels) Specifies the width of the embedded content in pixels
height number (in pixels) Specifies the height of the embedded content in pixels
src URL Specifies the URL of the resource embedded.
type content-type Specifies the type of the resource embedded.

Browser Compatibility

The tag <embed> is supported in all modern browsers.

  • Google Chrome 2+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 5.5+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1.3+
  • Opera 9.2+

Related Links