HTML accept-charset attribute

Last update on February 01 2025 13:31:13 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

accept charset

The accept-charset attribute specifies the character encodings a form submission can accept. This tells the browser which character sets to use when sending form data to the server.

Supported Element

<form>

Syntax

<form accept-charset="character-set-list" >...</form>

Values

Character Set List: A space-separated list of character encodings (e.g., UTF-8, ISO-8859-1).

The browser prioritizes encodings from left to right.
Common values: UTF-8 (recommended), ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-5.

Default Behavior: If omitted, the page’s charset (defined in ) is used.

Key Notes

1. HTML5 Support: The accept-charset attribute is valid in HTML5, not just HTML 4.01.

2. UTF-8 Recommendation: Modern applications should prioritize UTF-8 for broad compatibility.

3. Browser Handling: Browsers may ignore this attribute if the server specifies a charset via HTTP headers.

Examples

Example 1: Restricting to Image Files (HTML5)

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>accept Attribute Example</title>
</head>
<body>
  <form action="/upload" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <label for="avatar">Upload Profile Picture:</label>
    <input 
      type="file" 
      id="avatar" 
      name="avatar" 
      accept="image/png, image/jpeg, .jpg, .png"
    >
    <button type="submit">Upload</button>
  </form>
</body>
</html>

Result

html accept charset attribute with form

View this example in a separate browser window

Example of HTML accept-charset attribute with form

Browser Compatibility

Supported in all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge).
Partial support for wildcards (e.g., image/*) in older browsers.

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