Summary

The textarea (<textarea> ) HTML element represents a multi-line plain-text editing control.

Usage context

Attributes

Like all other HTML elements, this element supports the global attributes.

autofocus HTML5

This Boolean attribute lets you specify that a form control should have input focus when the page loads, unless the user overrides it, for example by typing in a different control. Only one form-associated element in a document can have this attribute specified. 

cols

The visible width of the text control, in average character widths. If it is specified, it must be a positive integer. If it is not specified, the default value is 20 (HTML5).

disabled

This Boolean attribute indicates that the user cannot interact with the control. (If this attribute is not specified, the control inherits its setting from the containing element, for example <fieldset> ; if there is no containing element with the disabled attribute set, then the control is enabled.)

form HTML5

The form element that the textarea element is associated with (its "form owner"). The value of the attribute must be an ID of a form element in the same document. If this attribute is not specified, the textarea element must be a descendant of a form element. This attribute enables you to place textarea elements anywhere within a document, not just as descendants of their form elements.

maxlength HTML5

The maximum number of characters (Unicode code points) that the user can enter. If it is not specified, the user can enter an unlimited number of characters.

name

The name of the control.

placeholder HTML5

A hint to the user of what can be entered in the control. The placeholder text must not contain carriage returns or line-feeds.

readonly

This Boolean attribute indicates that the user cannot modify the value of the control. Unlike the disabled attribute, the readonly attribute does not prevent the user from clicking or selecting in the control. The value of a read-only control is still submitted with the form.

required HTML5

This attribute specifies that the user must fill in a value before submitting a form.

rows

The number of visible text lines for the control.

selectionDirection HTML5

The direction in which selection occurred. This is "forward" if the selection was made from left-to-right in an LTR locale or right-to-left in an RTL locale, or "backward" if the selection was made in the opposite direction. This can be "none" if the selection direction is unknown.

selectionEnd

The index to the last character in the current selection.

selectionStart

The index to the first character in the current selection.

wrap HTML5

Indicates how the control wraps text. Possible values are:

• hard: The browser automatically inserts line breaks (CR+LF) so that each line has no more than the width of the control; the cols attribute must be specified.
• soft: The browser ensures that all line breaks in the value consist of a CR+LF pair, but does not insert any additional line breaks.

If this attribute is not specified, soft is its default value.

DOM interface

This element implements the HTMLTextAreaElement interface.

Gecko 2.0 introduced support for resizable textareas. This is controlled by the resize CSS property. Resizing of textareas is enabled by default, but you can explicitly disable it by including the following CSS:

textarea {
  resize: none;
}

Examples

<textarea name="textarea" rows="10" cols="50">Write something here</textarea>

Compatibility

See also

Other form-related elements: <form> , <button> , <datalist> , <legend> , <label> , <select> , <optgroup> , <option> , <input> , <keygen> , <fieldset> , <output> , <progress> and <meter> .