Web Design in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Appendix D. Proprietary Tags

Although the vast majority of tags work for both major browsers, Netscape and Microsoft have developed sets of proprietary tags that work only in their respective browsers to gain an edge over the competition. Fortunately, this practice has come to an end (or at least slowed down) now that the browser companies have vowed to comply with standards, but we are still left with a legacy of tags that only work on one browser or another.

Dealing with browser differences is the major cause of headaches for web developers. The tables in this appendix list the available HTML tags that are still supported only in either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Proprietary Tags

The following tags and attributes are supported only by Internet Explorer:

HTML tag or attribute	Description
<basefont> color=color face=font face	Sets the color and/or font of the entire document when placed in the <head> or for subsequent text when placed in the flow of the body text
<bgsound>	Inserts an audio file that plays in the background
<body> bgproperties=value	Determines whether background image scrolls with the background
<body> leftmargin=n rightmargin=n	Sets the margin between the browser window and the contents of the page
<caption> valign=position	Sets vertical alignment of table caption
<comment>	Inserts a comment in the HTML source that does not display in the browser (same as <!-- and -->)
<form> target=