HCard

hCard (short for "HTML vCard") is a microformat for publishing the contact details of people, companies, organizations, and places, in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, or arbitrary XML. hCard does this using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC 2426) properties and values.

It allows parsing tools (for example other websites, or Firefox's Operator extension) to extract the details, and display them using some other websites or mapping tools, index or search them, or to load them into an address book program.

Example

Consider the HTML:

Joe Doe

Jo

The Example Company

604-555-1234

http://example.com/

With microformat markup, that becomes:

Joe Doe

Jo

The Example Company

604-555-1234

http://example.com/

Here the formal name ("fn"), organization ("org"), telephone number ("tel") and web address ("url") have been identified using specific class names; and the whole thing is wrapped in class="vcard" which indicate that the other classes form an hcard, and are not just coincidentally named. If the hCard is for an organisation or venue, the "fn" and "org" classes are used on the same element, as in Wikipedia or Wembley Stadium. Other, optional, hCard classes also exist.

It is now possible for software, for example browser plug-ins, to extract the information, and transfer it to other applications, such as an address book.

Geo + adr

The Geo microformat is a part of the hCard specification, and is often used to include the coordinates of a location within an hCard.

The "adr" part of hCard can also be used as a stand-alone microformat.

Live example

Here are the Wikimedia Foundation's contact details, as a live hCard:

Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

200 2nd Ave. South #358

St. Petersburg, FL 33701-4313

USA

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Fax: [phone]

The mark-up (wrapped for clarity) used is:

Wikimedia Foundation Inc.

200 2nd Ave. South #358

St. Petersburg, FL 33701-4313

USA

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

Fax: [phone]

(Ordinarily, one would use

FL

so that the output included region="Florida", but the abbr element is not supported on Wikipedia.)

Note that, in this example, the formal name ("fn") and organisation ("org") properties are combined on one element, indicating that this is the hCard for an organisation, not a person.

Other attributes

Other commonly used hCard attributes include
*bday - a person's birth date
*email
*honorific-prefix
*honorific-suffix
*label - for non-granular addresses
*logo
*nickname
*note - free text
*photo
*post-office-box

ee also

* DataPortability

References

*cite book |title=Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0 |last=Allsopp |first=John |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2007 |publisher=Friendsof |location=Berkeley |isbn=1590598148 |pages=p. 125

External links

* [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard hCard spec on microformats.org]
* [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-cheatsheet hCard cheat-sheet]
* Some have recommended using hCard Microformat for the sake of local search engine optimization. While there's no clear benefit to local search placement from using hCard, this [http://searchengineland.com/071015-123143.php article on hCard and local search] outlines reasons why it's a good idea to incorporate.
* [http://www.webmonkey.com/tutorial/Add_hCard_to_Your_Site hCard tutorial wiki on webmonkey.com]