Accessible superscript dates (1st, 2nd, 3rd, th)

Accessibility
1

Hello,
Whats the best accessibility practice when representing special characters for dates/numbers? Specifically “st”, “nd”, “rd”, “th” (as in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc).

Are there special characters for these? Are they accessible? If not, whats the best CSS practice, or is it best to just avoid?

Thanks!!

2

What I would do is to use something like this:

3<span class="ordinal">rd</span>
.ordinal {vertical-align:super;}

That way, it is part of the text, any user-agent that doesn’t support superscript will just see it as “3rd”, and you’ve got all bases covered.

(Actually, what I would do would be to just write it as “3rd”, because I hate superscripts on ordinals like that, but that is just personal preference!)

3

hmm… i can dig it!

very cool, dont think i’ve seen

vertical-align:super;

before!

always appreciate learning something new!

and yeah - i’m a bit reluctant on the superscript usage myself… but… it seems to be a hard (silly?) requirement!

thanks!!

4

okay, i’m going to expose my ignorance for the world to see here, but what the heck is wrong with SUP???

 3<sup>rd</sup>

it is part of the text, any user-agent that doesn’t support SUP will just see it as “3rd”, and you’ve got all bases covered

plus, it’s valid in strict doctypes, and way less “hackish” than a span

5

+1 Rudy

6

it is part of the text, any user-agent that doesn’t support SUP will just see it as “3rd”, and you’ve got all bases covered

plus, it’s valid in strict doctypes, and way less “hackish” than a span

cool… now an html tag i wasnt familiar with! thx!!

7

I agree. There is nothing whatever wrong with using the <sup> tag for that - after all that is basically what the tag is there for.