LEGEND - Fieldset Caption

The LEGEND element defines a caption for form controls grouped by the FIELDSET element. The LEGEND element must be at the start of a FIELDSET, before any other elements.

While the LEGEND element is not supported by old browsers, it can still be used safely if a block-level element immediately follows the LEGEND. Combined with careful use of FIELDSET, this will cause non-supporting browsers to render the caption as its own paragraph. Elements such as STRONG, B, and BIG could also be used to help express the meaning of LEGEND to non-supporting browsers.

An example follows:

<FIELDSET>
  <LEGEND ACCESSKEY=C>Credit Card Information</LEGEND>
  <P>
    <LABEL ACCESSKEY=V>
      <INPUT TYPE=radio NAME=card VALUE=visa> Visa
    </LABEL>
    <LABEL ACCESSKEY=M>
      <INPUT TYPE=radio NAME=card VALUE=mc> MasterCard
    </LABEL>
    <BR>
    <LABEL ACCESSKEY=N>
      Number: <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=number>
    </LABEL>
    <BR>
    <LABEL ACCESSKEY=E>
      Expiry: <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=expiry>
    </LABEL>
  </P>
</FIELDSET>

LEGEND's ACCESSKEY attribute, used throughout the preceding example, specifies a single Unicode character as a shortcut key for giving focus to the LEGEND, allowing the user to quickly jump to a group of form controls. Entities (e.g. é) may be used as the ACCESSKEY value.

More Information

• LEGEND in W3C HTML 4.01 Specification
• LEGEND in Index DOT Html