<symbol>

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

The <symbol> element is used to define graphical template objects which can be instantiated by a <use> element.

The use of <symbol> elements for graphics that are used multiple times in the same document adds structure and semantics. Documents that are rich in structure may be rendered graphically, as speech, or as Braille, and thus promote accessibility.

Example

html,
body,
svg {
  height: 100%;
}

html

<svg viewBox="0 0 80 20" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <!-- Our symbol in its own coordinate system -->
  <symbol id="myDot" width="10" height="10" viewBox="0 0 2 2">
    <circle cx="1" cy="1" r="1" />
  </symbol>

  <!-- A grid to materialize our symbol positioning -->
  <path
    d="M0,10 h80 M10,0 v20 M25,0 v20 M40,0 v20 M55,0 v20 M70,0 v20"
    fill="none"
    stroke="pink" />

  <!-- All instances of our symbol -->
  <use href="#myDot" x="5" y="5" style="opacity:1.0" />
  <use href="#myDot" x="20" y="5" style="opacity:0.8" />
  <use href="#myDot" x="35" y="5" style="opacity:0.6" />
  <use href="#myDot" x="50" y="5" style="opacity:0.4" />
  <use href="#myDot" x="65" y="5" style="opacity:0.2" />
</svg>

Attributes

height: This attribute determines the height of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage> ; Default value: auto; Animatable: yes
preserveAspectRatio: This attribute defines how the svg fragment must be deformed if it is embedded in a container with a different aspect ratio. Value type: (none| xMinYMin| xMidYMin| xMaxYMin| xMinYMid| xMidYMid| xMaxYMid| xMinYMax| xMidYMax| xMaxYMax) (meet|slice)? ; Default value: xMidYMid meet; Animatable: yes
refX: This attribute determines the x coordinate of the reference point of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage>|left|center|right ; Default value: None; Animatable: yes
refY: This attribute determines the y coordinate of the reference point of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage>|top|center|bottom ; Default value: None; Animatable: yes
viewBox: This attribute defines the bound of the SVG viewport for the current symbol. Value type: <list-of-numbers> ; Default value: none; Animatable: yes
width: This attribute determines the width of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage> ; Default value: auto; Animatable: yes
x: This attribute determines the x coordinate of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage> ; Default value: 0; Animatable: yes
y: This attribute determines the y coordinate of the symbol. Value type: <length>|<percentage> ; Default value: 0; Animatable: yes

Usage context

Categories	Container element, Structural element
Permitted content	Any number of the following elements, in any order: Animation elements Descriptive elements Shape elements Structural elements Gradient elements `<a>`, `<clipPath>`, `<cursor>`, `<filter>`, `<font>`, `<font-face>`, `<foreignObject>`, `<image>`, `<marker>`, `<mask>`, `<pattern>`, `<script>`, `<style>`, `<switch>`, `<text>`, `<view>`

Note: A <symbol> element itself is not meant to be rendered. Only instances of a <symbol> element (i.e., a reference to a <symbol> by a <use> element) are rendered. That means that some browsers could refuse to directly display a <symbol> element even if the CSS display property tells otherwise.

Specifications

Specification
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 2 # SymbolElement

Browser compatibility

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