Bill Kennelly's HTML Tag Reference
TEXTAREA - text field on a form
Description
The TEXTAREA tag defines a multiline input field on an HTML form. A text area field lets the user enter words, phrases, or numbers.

You can defines the number of characters per line the text area can accommodate without scrolling by supplying the COLS attribute. You can specify that the number of lines that can appear without scrolling by supplying the ROWS attribute.

Scrollbars appear in the text area if the text in the text area element exceeds the number of specified columns or rows. This tag would be used within the <FORM> tags
Syntax
<TEXTAREA COLS="columns" NAME="name" ONBLUR="Scode" ONCHANGE="JScode" ONFOCUS="JScode" ONSELECT="JScode" ROWS="rows" WRAP="OFF"|"HARD"|"SOFT">Text you want to display goes here</TEXTAREA>
Attributes
COLS specifies the width (number of characters per line) the text area can accommodate without scrolling.
NAME specifies the name of the text area element. This value is the name portion of the name/value pair sent to the invoked CGI program when the form is submitted. The name is not displayed on the form.
ONBLUR specifies JavaScript code to execute when the text area element loses focus.
ONCHANGE specifies JavaScript code to execute when the text area element loses focus and its value has been modified.
ONFOCUS specifies JavaScript code to execute when a text area element receives focus.
ONSELECT specifies JavaScript code to execute when a user selects some of the text in the text area element.
ROWS specifies the number of lines (number of rows) the text area can accommodate without scrolling.
WRAP specifies whether lines longer than the text area's column width wrap to the next line.
The value of WRAP can be one of the following:
  • OFF disables word wrap. Text the user types is displayed with the exact line breaks that the user types. If the user explicitly inserts a line break, however, the break is included as part of the text area's value. The user has to scroll horizontally to see the ends of lines that do not fit in the text area element.
  • HARD causes word wrap, and the line breaks are included when the form is submitted. The text wraps inside the text area element, and that the user does not need to scroll horizontally.
  • SOFT causes word wrap, but the line breaks are not included when the form is submitted.
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