Figures - Do you use the right HTML/CSS code to add images and captions?
Last updated by Tiago Araújo [SSW] over 2 years ago.See historyMost developers put the image and the caption in a DIV tag, where the figure is just a paragraph - this is not correct.
<div>
<img alt="" />
<p>Figure: Caption</p>
</div>
Figure: Bad example
Instead, you should use <figure> and <figcaption> as per https://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_figcaption.asp. This structure gives semantic meaning to the image and figure:
<figure>
<img src="image.jpg" alt="image"></img src="image.jpg" alt="image">
<figcaption>Figure: Caption</figcaption>
</figure>
Figure: Good example
The old way
For some internal sites, we still use the old way to place images: Using <dl> , <dt> (which is the item in the list – in our case an image), and <dd> for a caption.
<dl class="badImage">
OR
<dl class="goodImage">
<dt><img src="image.jpg" alt="Image" /></dt>
<dd>Figure: Caption</dd>
</dl>
</dl>
Figure: Old way example
Note: <dl> stands for "definition list"; <dt> for "definition term"; and <dd> for "definition description".