HTML Frameset Tutorial

Browser Support

The frameset tag is used to define a frameset. A frameset holds two or more individual frames, with each frame displaying a separate document.

There is only one DOCTYPE that is legal for a frameset. Please see the DOCTYPE tutorial for more on the DOCTYPE.

Important: It is illegal to use the body element in a frameset page. The frameset only defines the frames. However, you can use a <noframes> element containing content for browsers that do not support frames. You can then use the body element within the noframes element and only within the noframes element.

You should also be aware that search engines generally do a very poor job of indexing framed sites, so using them can easily negatively affect your site's search engine indexing and ranking.

Below is the code for the frameset in Example 1 linked below:

<html>
<frameset cols="20%,60%,20%">
<frame src="page1.html">
<frame src="page2.html">
<frame src="page3.html">
</frameset>
</html>

Here's are three example framesets:

» Example 1
» Example 2
» Example 3

Note that there is no end tag for the frame element. In XHTML the frame tag should be self-closed. Example:

<frame src="page1.html" />

Here's the code for Example 2:

<html>
<frameset rows="20%,60%,20%">
<frame src="frame1.html">
<frame src="frame2.html">
<frame src="frame3.html">
</frameset>
</html>

Here's the code for Example 3:

<html>
<frameset rows="20%,80%">
<frame src="frame1.html" />
<frameset cols="20%,80%">
<frame src="frame2.html" />
<frame src="frame3.html" />
</frameset>
</frameset>
</html>

Based on your interest in this tutorial you may also be interested in:

HTML Frame Tutorial

This concludes the HTML Frameset Tutorial.

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