<bdo>

The HTML <bdo> element (bidirectional override) is used to override the current directionality of text. It causes the directionality of the characters to be ignored in favor of the specified directionality.

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.
Permitted content	Phrasing content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.

Attributes

This element's attributes include the global attributes.

dir

Text direction in this element. Possible values are:

• ltr: Indicates that the text should go in a left-to-right direction.
• rtl: Indicates that the text should go in a right-to-left direction.

Examples

<!-- Switch text direction -->
<p>This text will go left to right.</p>
<p><bdo dir="rtl">This text will go right
to left.</bdo></p>

Result

This text will go left to right.

.tfel ot thgir og lliw txet sihT

Notes

The HTML 4 specification did not specify events for this element; they were added in XHTML. This is most likely an oversight.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of '<bdo>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5 The definition of '<bdo>' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML 4.01 Specification The definition of '<bdo>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility