<bdo> HTML bidirectional text override element

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.

The <bdo> HTML element overrides the current directionality of text, so that the text within is rendered in a different direction.

Try it

<h1>Famous seaside songs</h1>

<p>The English song "Oh I do like to be beside the seaside"</p>

<p>
  Looks like this in Hebrew:
  <span dir="rtl">אה, אני אוהב להיות ליד חוף הים</span>
</p>

<p>
  In the computer's memory, this is stored as
  <bdo dir="ltr">אה, אני אוהב להיות ליד חוף הים</bdo>
</p>

html {
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

bdo {
  /* Add your styles here */
}

The text's characters are drawn from the starting point in the given direction; the individual characters' orientation is not affected (so characters don't get drawn backward, for example).

Attributes

This element's attributes include the global attributes.

dir

The direction in which text should be rendered in this element's contents. 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

html
<!-- 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

Notes

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

Technical summary

Content categories Permitted content Tag omission Permitted parents Implicit ARIA role Permitted ARIA roles DOM interface

Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.

Phrasing content.

None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.

Any element that accepts phrasing content.

generic

Any

HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.

Specifications

Specification

HTML
# the-bdo-element

Browser compatibility

Enable JavaScript to view this browser compatibility table.

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This page was last modified on Apr 24, 2026 by MDN contributors.

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