Description

The HTML element <object> is used to define an embedded object within an HTML document.

The embedded object can be of any type like a video, audio, PDF document, Flash animations, Java Applets, ActiveX, images, another web page, etc.,

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is defined as a Block element.
Contents It can contain Block elements, Inline elements, and text.
In case it contains the <param> element, it must come first.
Tags Both the opening and closing tags are required.
Versions HTML 4, 4.01, 5

Syntax

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

  • It is always recommended to use the type attribute when data is provided, as it allows the browser to avoid loading unsupported content types.
<object data="URL" type="content-type">...</object>

Examples

Run this on IDE

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Example - HTML Element object</title>
</head>
<body>
    <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
        <param name="movie" value="/assets/videos/play.swf">
    </object>
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <object> element.

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

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

  • One of the required attributes must be specified for the element to be valid.
Attribute Value Required Description
data URL Yes Specifies the location of the data or file that the object requires.
type content-type Yes Specifies the content-type of the resource specified by data attribute.
align left, right, top,
middle, bottom		 No Obsolete
Use CSS instead. Specifies the alignment of the <object> element with respect to the surrounding content.
archive URLs No Obsolete
A space-separated list of URLs to archives containing resources relevant to the object.
border pixels No Obsolete
Specifies the width of the border around the object. Use the CSS border property instead.
classid URI No Obsolete
Defines the URL or internal reference for the object's implementation.
codebase URI No Obsolete
Specifies the base path used to resolve relative URLs specified by the classid, data, and archive attributes.
codetype content-type No Obsolete
Specifies the content-type of data expected when downloading the object specified by classid attribute.
declare declare No This boolean attribute specifies that the object should only be declared but not instantiated.
form form-id No Specifies the form that the object element is associated with i.e. its "form owner".
height length No Sets the object's height.
hspace pixels No Obsolete
Specifies the amount of whitespace on the left and right sides of an object.
name text No Specifies the name of the object.
standby message No Obsolete
Specifies a text message to be displayed while the object is loading.
usemap URL No Defines a client-side image map associated with an image object element.
vspace pixels No Obsolete
Specifies the amount of whitespace on the top and bottom sides of an object.
width length No Sets the object's width.

Browser Compatibility

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

  • Google Chrome 1+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 3+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1+
  • Opera 4+

Related Links