<rp>: The Ruby Fallback Parenthesis element

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The <rp>HTML element is used to provide fall-back parentheses for browsers that do not support display of ruby annotations using the <ruby> element. One <rp> element should enclose each of the opening and closing parentheses that wrap the <rt> element that contains the annotation's text.

Try it

<ruby> 漢 <rp>(</rp><rt>kan</rt><rp>)</rp> 字 <rp>(</rp><rt>ji</rt><rp>)</rp> </ruby>

ruby { font-size: 2em; }

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Usage notes

Ruby annotations are for showing pronunciation of East Asian characters, like using Japanese furigana or Taiwanese bopomofo characters. The <rp> element is used in the case of lack of <ruby> element support; the <rp> content provides what should be displayed in order to indicate the presence of a ruby annotation, usually parentheses.

Examples

Using ruby annotations

This example uses ruby annotations to display the Romaji equivalents for each character.

html

<ruby> 漢 <rp>(</rp><rt>Kan</rt><rp>)</rp> 字 <rp>(</rp><rt>ji</rt><rp>)</rp> </ruby>

body { font-size: 22px; }

Result

See the article about the <ruby> element for further examples.

Without ruby support

If your browser does not support ruby annotations, the result looks like this instead:

漢 (Kan) 字 (ji)

body { font-size: 22px; }

Technical summary

Content categories	None.
Permitted content	Text
Tag omission	The end tag can be omitted if the element is immediately followed by an `<rt>` or another `<rp>` element, or if there is no more content in the parent element.
Permitted parents	A `<ruby>` element. `<rp>` must be positioned immediately before or after an `<rt>` element.
Implicit ARIA role	No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	`HTMLElement`

Specifications

Specification
HTML # the-rp-element