caption-side

Baseline Widely available *

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2015⁩.

* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.

The caption-side CSS property puts the content of a table's <caption> on the specified side. The values are relative to the writing-mode of the table.

Try it

caption-side: top;

caption-side: bottom;

<section class="default-example" id="default-example">
  <table class="transition-all" id="example-element">
    <caption>
      Famous animals
    </caption>
    <tr>
      <th>Name</th>
      <th>Location</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Giraffe</td>
      <td>Africa</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Penguin</td>
      <td>Antarctica</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Sloth</td>
      <td>South America</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Tiger</td>
      <td>Asia</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</section>

table {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
  text-align: left;
  color: black;
}

th,
td {
  padding: 0.2rem 1rem;
}

caption {
  background: #ffcc33;
  padding: 0.5rem 1rem;
}

tr {
  background: #eeeeee;
}

tr:nth-child(even) {
  background: #cccccc;
}

Syntax

css

/* Directional values */
caption-side: top;
caption-side: bottom;

/* Global values */
caption-side: inherit;
caption-side: initial;
caption-side: revert;
caption-side: revert-layer;
caption-side: unset;

The caption-side property is specified as one of the keyword values listed below.

Values

top: The caption box should be positioned at the block start side of the table.
bottom: The caption box should be positioned at the block end side of the table.

Note: The CSS logical properties and values module defines two logical values, inline-start and inline-end, to position the caption box at the inline start edge and inline end edge of the table, respectively. These values are not supported in any browsers.

Formal definition

Initial value	`top`
Applies to	table-caption elements
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	discrete

Formal syntax

caption-side = 
  top     |
  bottom

Examples

Setting captions above and below

HTML

html

<table class="top">
  <caption>
    Caption ABOVE the table
  </caption>
  <tr>
    <td>Some data</td>
    <td>Some more data</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<br />

<table class="bottom">
  <caption>
    Caption BELOW the table
  </caption>
  <tr>
    <td>Some data</td>
    <td>Some more data</td>
  </tr>
</table>

CSS

css

.top caption {
  caption-side: top;
}

.bottom caption {
  caption-side: bottom;
}

table {
  border: 1px solid red;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid blue;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 # propdef-caption-side
CSS Logical Properties and Values Level 1 # caption-side

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Aug 13, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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