Tablecaption

Tablecaption refers to the caption that accompanies a table in markup languages such as HTML. In HTML, this is implemented with the caption element, which provides a title or brief description of the table’s contents.

The caption element has specific placement rules: it must be the first child of the table element, and there can be at most one caption per table. If a caption is omitted, the table will still render and be accessible, but it will lack an explicit title for users and assistive technologies. The visible placement of the caption is controlled by CSS; the caption-side property can position the caption on the top (the common default) or on the bottom of the table.

Accessibility and semantics are central to the table caption. The caption helps screen readers identify the table and its purpose. In HTML5, it is advisable to use the caption rather than deprecated table attributes such as summary. When the table has headers, using header cells with scope attributes (for example, scope="col" or scope="row") further clarifies the table’s structure for assistive technologies.

Related considerations include styling and compatibility: the caption can be styled like other elements, and some older attributes related to caption alignment are obsolete in modern HTML. In other contexts, the term tablecaption may appear in documentation as a generic label for a table’s title, or in systems outside HTML, where equivalent captioning mechanisms exist (for example, in LaTeX or word-processing workflows).