HTML <embed> Tag

Introduction

The <embed> tag is a versatile tool in HTML which allows web developers to embed external content in a web page. This is commonly used for embedding multimedia files such as videos, audio, documents, and Flash or Java components. It can be viewed as a window granting your web page access directly to external resources so that they could be used seamlessly in the design aspect of the page.

This guide will discuss how to make use of the <embed> tag and how it helps in building interactive and media-rich websites.

What is the <embed> Tag?

The <embed> tag is used for embedding some external content or application into an HTML document. You can imagine this very actively in the following examples:

• Multimedia files
• Interactive applications: Flash, Java
• PDFs or document files of other types

Compared to other media tags like <iframe> or <object>, <embed> is rather uncomplicated and very flexible for adding external resources.

What You Have to Know About the Syntax

The basic syntax of the <embed> tag would follow:

<embed src="file_path_or_URL" type="media_type" width="width_value" height="height_value">

A Few Key Attributes:

• src: The file path or the URL of the external content to be embedded.
• type: The media type (e.g., application/pdf, video/mp4, etc.).
• width and height: Defines the space for the embedded content.

Why Use the <embed> Tag?

There are a couple of unique advantages to using an <embed> tag:

1. Easy to Use
   It takes quite a few tokens of code to embed a file onto a web page.
2. Versatile
   This idea embodies many varieties of files, multimedia, documents, even interactive applications.
3. More Immersive
   By embedding, the user will not have to leave your page at all to access an external resource, thus keeping him or her entirely immersed in the site.