Flow content elements

Flow content is a broad category that encompasses most elements that can go inside the <body> element, including heading elements, sectioning elements, phrasing elements, embedding elements, interactive elements, and form-related elements. It also includes text nodes (but not those that only consist of white space characters).

Different subset type belong to the flow content

Semantic subset

Identify the different sections or area in the body of the document

<header> an introductory content
<footer> a footer for its nearest ancestor sectioning content
<main> the dominant content of the document
<nav> a section of a page whose purpose is to provide navigation links
<section> a generic standalone section of the document
<article> a self-contained composition in the document (distributable or reusable)
<aside> a portion of a document which is indirectly related to the document’s main content
<details> a disclosure widget in which information is not visible directly
<summary> inside a <details> element, summarize its content
<figure> a self-contained content, potentially with an optional caption
<figcaption> a caption or legend describing the rest of the contents of its parent <figure> element
<data> a given piece of content with a machine-readable translation

Textual subset

Defines the level or the type of content in the document.

<abbr> an abbreviation or acronym
<address> contact information for a person or people, or for an organization
<blockquote> an extended quotation
<br> a line break in text
<cite> mark up the title of a cited creative work
<code> a short fragment of computer code
<dfn> the term being defined within the context of a definition phrase or sentence
<div> a generic container for flow content
<em> text having stress emphasis
<h1> the higher level of section headings
<h2> second level of section headings
<h3> third level of section headings
<h4> forth level of section headings
<h5> fifth level of section headings
<h6> the lower level of section headings
<kbd> inline text denoting textual user input from a keyboard
<p> a paragraph
<pre> a preformatted text which is to be presented exactly as written
<q> a short inline quotation
<samp> inline sample (or quoted) output from a computer program
<span> a generic inline container for phrasing content
<strong> content having strong importance, seriousness, or urgency
<var> the name of a variable in a mathematical expression or a programming context

Hypertextual subset

Link with other web resources.

<a> a hyperlink to web pages, files, email addresses, locations… or a link’s destination

Listing subset

List representation of the content such as bulleted or ordered lists

<dl> a description list
<dt> a term in a description or definition list <dl>
<dd> the description, definition, or value for the preceding <dt>
<ol> an ordered list of items
<ul> an unordered list of items (bulleted list)
<li> an item in an <ol> or <ul> list

Forms subset

Allow the user to input or modify data fields in the document and to submit them to the server.

<button> an interactive element activated by a user, performing an action
<fieldset> a group of several controls in a <form>
<form> a document section containing interactive controls for submitting information
<input> interactive controls accepting data from the user
<label> a caption for an item
<legend> a caption for the content of its parent <fieldset>
<select> a control that provides a menu of options
<optgroup> a grouping of options within a <select>
<option> an item contained in a <select> or an <optgroup>
<textarea> a multi-line plain-text editing control

Basic Table subset

Represent tabular data (think about spreadsheets notion).

<caption> the caption (or title) of a <table>
<table> two-dimensional tabular data
<td> a cell of a <table> that contains data
<th> a cell as the header of a group of <table> cells
<tr> a row of cells in a <table>

Image subset

<img> an element embedding an image into the document

Presentation subset

Historically used for styling the content, these elements have, now, a more semantic role.

<b> content requiring the reader’s attention
<hr> a thematic break between paragraph-level elements
<i> text that is set off from the normal text for some reason
<small> side-comments, small print
<sub> text which should be displayed as subscript for solely typographical reasons
<sup> text which is to be displayed as superscript for solely typographical reasons