What is the iframe tag in HTML?

The iframe tag in HTML creates an inline rectangular frame that allows another HTML document to be embedded inside the current one. In addition, it allows several attributes inside the tag. These attributes control properties such as the webpage to display, height, and width of the frame, allowing scrolling, borders, and margins.

The illustration below shows what is an iframe in HTML:

What is an iframe in HTML?

Syntax

The basic syntax of an iframe tag is a follows:

<iframe> src = "webpage.html" </iframe>

We begin by opening the tags using the <> sign. In between, we write iframe. We then close the tags using the </> sign. Once again, we will place the name of our tag in-between <> and after the / symbol.

Attributes

The iframe tag allows several attributes that can be changed. We have listed some of them and their purpose below:

Attribute Purpose
src Refers to the URL of the webpage to be embedded.
height Changes the height of the frame. Values are in pixels
width Changes the width of the frame. Values are in pixels.
frameborder Allows border to be added or removed. Takes in the value of either 1 (yes) or 0 (no).
marginwidth Controls the width from the borders to the frame content. Values are in pixels
marginheight Controls the height from the borders to the frame content. Values are in pixels
scrolling Controls whether the frame should have scrollbars or not. Takes in the value of either “yes”, “no,” or “auto”.

Not every webpage can be added inside an iframe. Browser security restricts most web pages from being added inside an iframe in another HTML document.

Example

The code below shows how an iframe works:

Line 5 outputs a heading to differentiate the iframe from the rest of the HTML document.

src attribute holds the webpage URL to embed.

width and height have been adjusted accordingly.

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Similarly, we can test other attributes of iframe using the same webpage:

frameborder and scrolling are removed. marginheight is added. width and height are adjusted.

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We can also see what happens when a page cannot be embedded inside an iframe because of security restrictions:

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