# BODY - Document Body

Syntax | <BODY>...</BODY>

Attribute Specifications

- BACKGROUND=URI (background image for document)
- BGCOLOR=Color (background color for document)
- TEXT=Color (text color for document)
- LINK=Color (link color for document)
- VLINK=Color (visited link color for document)
- ALINK=Color (active link color for document)
- ONLOAD=Script (document has been loaded)
- ONUNLOAD=Script (document has been exited)
- common attributes

Contents

- In HTML 4.0 Strict: one or more block-level elements or SCRIPT, INS, DEL
- In HTML 4.0 Transitional: inline elements, block-level elements, INS, DEL

Contained in

- In HTML 4.0 Strict or Transitional: HTML
- In HTML 4.0 Frameset: NOFRAMES

The BODY element contains the document body. BODY is required in non-frames documents, but its start and end tags are always optional. In frames documents, BODY must be contained within the NOFRAMES element, if NOFRAMES is used.

The BODY element contains the document's content. The content should be contained within block-level elements or SCRIPT elements, though HTML 4.0 Transitional also allows inline elements directly within BODY.

BODY takes a number of attributes for specifying the background and colors of the document on visual browsers. These attributes are deprecated in HTML 4.0 in favor of style sheets, which provide greater flexibility in suggesting the presentation of a document. BGCOLOR suggests a background color, TEXT suggests a text color, LINK suggests a link color, VLINK suggests a visited link color, and ACTIVE suggests an active link color (when the link is selected). If one of these attributes is given, then all of them should be included to ensure that the user's chosen colors do not interfere with those suggested in the <BODY> tag. Authors should not rely on the specified colors being used since browsers allow these colors to be overridden by the user.

The BACKGROUND attribute suggests a background image for tiling on the document canvas. To help ensure a readable document, the BGCOLOR, TEXT, LINK, VLINK, and ALINK attributes should always be included when BACKGROUND is given. The BGCOLOR will be used for those not loading images.

Style sheets allow more flexibility in suggesting a background image, including the ability to specify the position of the image, how the image is tiled, and whether the image should scroll with the document.

In addition to the core events common to most elements, BODY accepts the following event attributes for client-side scripting:

- ONLOAD, when the document has been loaded;
- ONUNLOAD, when the document is exited.

## More Information

- BODY in W3C HTML 4.0 Recommendation
- BODY in W3C HTML 3.2 Recommendation
- BODY in HTML 2.0 Standard
- BODY in WDG HTML 3.2 Reference
- BODY in Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples