<rp>: The Ruby Fallback Parenthesis Element

I. Description

The HTML <rp> element exists to provide fall-back parenthesis for web browsers which do not support the display of ruby annotations. All modern web browsers as of 2025 do support ruby annotations however it is still considered good practice to utilize the <rp> element just in case.

The proper way to use the <rp> element is to create a <rp> element which contains only an opening parenthesis '(' and place that element to the left of a <rt> element; then create a second <rp> element which contains only a closing parethesis ')' and place that element to the right of a <rt> element. Basically you are wrapping each <rt> element in opening and closing parenthesis which are each contained in their own <rp> element.

The <rp> element must be a child of a <ruby> element.

See Also

The <rp> element is used in conjunction with the <ruby> and <rt> elements.

II. Examples

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Ruby Example Page</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>Ruby Example Page</h1>
        <p>
            The japanese Kanji for <i>water</i> is
            <ruby>
                水<rp>(</rp><rt>Mizu</rt><rp>)</rp>
            </ruby>;
            the word <i>water</i> may be written in Hiragana as
            <ruby>
                み<rp>(</rp><rt>mi</rt><rp>)</rp>
                ず<rp>(</rp><rt>zu</rt><rp>)</rp>
            </ruby>.
        </p>
    </body>
</html>

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