Ruby

“Ruby” are annotations meant to provide additional meaning or specify the pronunciation of a text segment.
They are mainly used in Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean).

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Standard properties (to use)

Table : Standard properties (to use)

Property	Description
ruby-align	Defines the alignment of ruby text relative to the base (e.g., start, center, space-between).
ruby-position	Defines the position of the ruby annotation (over, under, inter-character). Example: text above, below, or between characters.

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Deprecated or non-standard properties

Table : Deprecated or non-standard properties

Property	Status	Explanation
ruby-overhang (sometimes written as ruby-overhang.php in old docs)	Deprecated, never standardized	Property specific to Internet Explorer/Opera for handling ruby text spacing. Not supported today.

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Usage example

<ruby>
  漢 <rt>kan</rt>
  字 <rt>ji</rt>
</ruby>

ruby {
  ruby-align: center;
  ruby-position: over;
}

Result: the phonetic annotation (furigana) appears above the characters.

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Key takeaways

• The ruby-align and ruby-position properties are standardized and useful for Asian typography.
• ruby-overhang was an experimental IE/Opera property, now abandoned and should not be used.
• Ruby annotations improve readability and linguistic accessibility, especially for learning Japanese (furigana) and Chinese (pinyin).