Tooltips

Bootstrap tooltips

Note: We are transitioning MDB4 to a legacy version and focusing on developing MDB5. While we'll continue to support for the transition period, we encourage you to migrate to MDB5. We're offering a huge discount on MDB5 PRO to help with your transition, enabling you to leverage the full potential of the latest version. You can find more information here.
upgrade with discount

Below is documentation and examples for adding custom Bootstrap tooltips with CSS as well as JavaScript using CSS3 for animations and data-attributes for local title storage.

Overview

Things to know when using the tooltip plugin:

  • Tooltips rely on the 3rd party library Popper.js for positioning. You must include popper.min.js before bootstrap.js in order for tooltips to work!
  • Tooltips are opt-in for performance reasons, so you must initialize them yourself.
  • Tooltips with zero-length titles are never displayed.
  • Specify container: 'body' to avoid rendering problems in more complex components (like our input groups, button groups, etc).
  • Triggering tooltips on hidden elements will not work.
  • Tooltips for .disabled or disabled elements must be triggered on a wrapper element.
  • When triggered from hyperlinks that span multiple lines, tooltips will be centered. Use white-space: nowrap; on your <a>s to avoid this behavior.
  • Tooltips must be hidden before their corresponding elements have been removed from the DOM.

Got all that? Great, let’s see how they work with some examples.

Example: Enable tooltips everywhere

One way to initialize all tooltips on a page would be to select them by their data-toggle attribute, as bellow:

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

        // Tooltips Initialization
        $(function () {
        $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
        })

Examples

Hover over the links below to see tooltips:

Default tooltips

Tight pants next level keffiyeh you probably haven't heard of them. Photo booth beard raw denim letterpress vegan messenger bag stumptown. Farm-to-table seitan, mcsweeney's fixie sustainable quinoa 8-bit american apparel have a terry richardson vinyl chambray. Beard stumptown, cardigans banh mi lomo thundercats. Tofu biodiesel williamsburg marfa, four loko mcsweeney's cleanse vegan chambray. A really ironic artisan whatever keytar, scenester farm-to-table banksy Austin twitter handle freegan cred raw denim single-origin coffee viral.
Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            Tight pants next level keffiyeh
            <a href="#" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Default tooltip">you probably</a>
            haven't heard of them. Photo booth beard raw denim letterpress vegan messenger bag stumptown. Farm-to-table
            seitan, mcsweeney's fixie sustainable quinoa 8-bit american apparel
            <a href="#" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Another tooltip">have a</a>
            terry richardson vinyl chambray. Beard stumptown, cardigans banh mi lomo thundercats. Tofu biodiesel
            williamsburg marfa, four loko mcsweeney's cleanse vegan chambray. A really ironic artisan
            <a href="#" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Another one here too">whatever keytar</a>
            ,scenester farm-to-table banksy Austin
            <a href="#" data-toggle="tooltip" title="The last tip!">twitter handle</a>
            freegan cred raw denim single-origin coffee viral.

          
        
    
        
            

          // Tooltips Initialization
          $(function () {
            $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
          })

Material tooltips MDB Pro component

Tight pants next level keffiyeh you probably haven't heard of them. Photo booth beard raw denim letterpress vegan messenger bag stumptown. Farm-to-table seitan, mcsweeney's fixie sustainable quinoa 8-bit american apparel have a terry richardson vinyl chambray. Beard stumptown, cardigans banh mi lomo thundercats. Tofu biodiesel williamsburg marfa, four loko mcsweeney's cleanse vegan chambray. A really ironic artisan whatever keytar, scenester farm-to-table banksy Austin twitter handle freegan cred raw denim single-origin coffee viral.
Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            Tight pants next level keffiyeh <a href="#" class="material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip"
              title="Default tooltip">you
              probably</a>
            haven't
            heard of them. Photo booth beard raw denim letterpress vegan messenger bag stumptown. Farm-to-table seitan,
            mcsweeney's fixie sustainable quinoa 8-bit american apparel <a href="#" class="material-tooltip-main"
              data-toggle="tooltip" title="Another tooltip">have
              a</a> terry richardson vinyl chambray. Beard stumptown, cardigans banh mi lomo thundercats. Tofu
            biodiesel
            williamsburg marfa, four loko mcsweeney's cleanse vegan chambray. A really ironic artisan <a href="#"
              class="material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Another one here too">whatever keytar</a>,
            scenester farm-to-table banksy
            Austin
            <a href="#" class="material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip" title="The last tip!">twitter handle</a>
            freegan
            cred raw denim single-origin
            coffee viral.

          
        
    
        
            
              $(function () {
                $('.material-tooltip-main').tooltip({
                  template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip"><div class="tooltip-arrow md-arrow"></div><div class="tooltip-inner md-inner"></div></div>'
                });
              })

Four tooltips

Hover over the buttons below to see the four tooltips directions: top, right, bottom, and left.

Default tooltips

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="top"
              title="Tooltip on top">
              Tooltip on top
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="right"
              title="Tooltip on right">
              Tooltip on right
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="bottom"
              title="Tooltip on bottom">
              Tooltip on bottom
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="tooltip" data-placement="left"
              title="Tooltip on left">
              Tooltip on left
            </button>

          
        
    
        
            

              // Tooltips Initialization
              $(function () {
                $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
              })

Material tooltips MDB Pro component

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip"
              data-placement="top" title="MD on top">
              MD on top
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip"
              data-placement="right" title="MD on right">
              MD on right
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip"
              data-placement="bottom" title="MD on bottom">
              MD on bottom
            </button>
            <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip"
              data-placement="left" title="MD on left">
              MD on left
            </button>

          
        
    
        
            
              $(function () {
                $('.material-tooltip-main').tooltip({
                  template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip-main"><div class="tooltip-arrow md-arrow"></div><div class="tooltip-inner md-inner-main"></div></div>'
                });
              })

Custom HTML

You can use HTML to customize tooltip's title.

Default tooltip

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="tooltip" data-html="true"
              title="<em>Tooltip</em> <u>with</u> <b>HTML</b>">
              Tooltip with HTML
            </button>

          
        
    
        
            

              // Tooltips Initialization
              $(function () {
                $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
              })

Material tooltip MDB Pro component

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-main" data-toggle="tooltip" data-html="true"
              title="<em>Tooltip</em> <u>with</u> <b>HTML</b>">
              MD tooltip with HTML
            </button>

          
        
    
        
            

              $(function () {
                $('.material-tooltip-main').tooltip({
                  template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip-main"> <div class = "tooltip-arrow md-arrow" > < /div> <div class = "tooltip-inner md-inner-main" > < /div> </div>'
                });
              })

Disabled elements

Elements with the disabled attribute aren’t interactive, meaning users cannot focus, hover over, or click on them to trigger a tooltip (or popover). As a workaround, you’ll need to trigger the tooltip from a wrapper <div> or <span>, ideally made keyboard-focusable using tabindex="0", and override the pointer-events on the disabled element.

Default tooltip

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <span class="d-inline-block" tabindex="0" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Disabled tooltip">
              <button class="btn btn-primary" style="pointer-events: none;" type="button" disabled>Disabled
                button</button>
            </span>

          
        
    
        
            

              // Tooltips Initialization
              $(function () {
                $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
              })

Material tooltip MDB Pro component

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

            <span class="d-inline-block material-tooltip-main" tabindex="0" data-toggle="tooltip"
              title="Disabled tooltip">
              <button class="btn btn-secondary" style="pointer-events: none;" type="button" disabled>MD Disabled
                button</button>
            </span>

          
        
    
        
            

              $(function () {
                $('.material-tooltip-main').tooltip({
                  template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip-main"> <div class = "tooltip-arrow md-arrow" > < /div> <div class = "tooltip-inner md-inner-main" > < /div> </div>'
                });
              })

Material Email Tooltips MDB Pro component

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-email" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="top" title="MD example">
          MD on top
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-email" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="right" title="MD example">
          MD on right
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-email" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="bottom" title="MD example">
          MD on bottom
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-email" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="left" title="MD example">
          MD on left
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-email" data-toggle="tooltip" data-html="true"
          title="<em>Tooltip</em> <u>with</u> <b>HTML</b>">
          MD Tooltip with HTML
        </button>

        <span class="d-inline-block material-tooltip-email" tabindex="0" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Disabled tooltip">
          <button class="btn btn-secondary" style="pointer-events: none;" type="button" disabled>MD Disabled
            button</button>
        </span>

      
        
    
        
            
          $(function () {
            $('.material-tooltip-email').tooltip({
              template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip-email"><div class="tooltip-arrow md-arrow"></div><div class="tooltip-inner md-inner-email"></div></div>'
            });
          })

Material Smaller Tooltips MDB Pro component

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-smaller" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="top" title="MD example">
          MD on top
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-smaller" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="right" title="MD example">
          MD on right
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-smaller" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="bottom" title="MD example">
          MD on bottom
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-smaller" data-toggle="tooltip"
          data-placement="left" title="MD example">
          MD on left
        </button>

        <button type="button" class="btn btn-secondary material-tooltip-smaller" data-toggle="tooltip" data-html="true"
          title="<em>Tooltip</em> <u>with</u> <b>HTML</b>">
          MD Tooltip with HTML
        </button>

        <span class="d-inline-block material-tooltip-smaller" tabindex="0" data-toggle="tooltip"
          title="Disabled tooltip">
          <button class="btn btn-secondary" style="pointer-events: none;" type="button" disabled>MD Disabled
            button</button>
        </span>
      
        
    
        
            
          $(function () {
            $('.material-tooltip-smaller').tooltip({
              template: '<div class="tooltip md-tooltip"><div class="tooltip-arrow md-arrow"></div><div class="tooltip-inner md-inner"></div></div>'
            });
          })

Usage

The tooltip plugin generates content and markup on demand and by default places tooltips after their trigger element.

You may trigger the tooltip via JavaScript:

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

        $('#example').tooltip(options)

Overflow auto and scroll

The tooltip position attempts to automatically change when a parent container has overflow: auto or overflow: scroll like our .table-responsive, but still keeps the original placement’s positioning. To resolve this, set the boundary option to anything other than the default value, 'scrollParent', for example 'window':

Edit in sandbox 
        
            

        $('#example').tooltip({ boundary: 'window' })

Markup

The required markup for a tooltip is only a data attribute and a title on the HTML element you wish to have a tooltip. The generated markup of a tooltip is rather simple, though it does require a position (by default, set to top by the plugin).

Making tooltips work for keyboard and assistive technology users

You should only add tooltips to HTML elements that are traditionally keyboard-focusable and interactive (such as links or form controls). Although arbitrary HTML elements (such as spans) can be made focusable by adding the tabindex="0" attribute, this will add potentially annoying and confusing tab stops on non-interactive elements for keyboard users. In addition, most assistive technologies currently do not announce the tooltip in this situation.

Additionally, do not rely solely on hover as the trigger for your tooltip, as this will make your tooltips impossible to trigger for keyboard users.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
        <!-— HTML to write -->
        <a href="#" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Some tooltip text!">Hover over me</a>

        <!-— Generated markup by the plugin -->
        <div class="tooltip bs-tooltip-top" role="tooltip">
          <div class="arrow"></div>
          <div class="tooltip-inner">
            Some tooltip text!
          </div>
        </div>
      
        
    
        
            

          // Tooltips Initialization
          $(function () {
            $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
          })

Disabled elements

Elements with the disabled attribute aren’t interactive, meaning users cannot focus, hover, or click them to trigger a tooltip (or popover). As a workaround, you’ll need to trigger the tooltip from a wrapper <div> or <span>, ideally made keyboard-focusable using tabindex="0", and override the pointer-events on the disabled element.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
        <span class="d-inline-block" tabindex="0" data-toggle="tooltip" title="Disabled tooltip">
          <button class="btn btn-primary" style="pointer-events: none;" type="button" disabled>Disabled button</button>
        </span>
      
        
    
        
            

          // Tooltips Initialization
          $(function () {
            $('[data-toggle="tooltip"]').tooltip()
          })

Options

Options can be passed via data attributes or JavaScript. For data attributes, append the option name to data-, as in data-animation="".

Name Type Default Description
animation boolean true Apply a CSS fade transition to the tooltip
boundary string | element 'scrollParent' Overflow constraint boundary of the tooltip. Accepts the values of 'viewport', 'window', 'scrollParent', or an HTMLElement reference (JavaScript only). For more information refer to Popper.js's preventOverflow docs.
constraints Array [] An array of constraints — passed through to Tether. For more information refer to Tether's constraint docs.
container string | element | false false

Appends the tooltip to a specific element. Example: container: 'body'. This option is particularly useful in that it allows you to position the tooltip in the flow of the document near the triggering element — which will prevent the tooltip from floating away from the triggering element during a window resize.
delay number | object 0

Delay showing and hiding the tooltip (ms) — does not apply to manual trigger type

If a number is supplied, the delay is applied to both hide/show

Object structure is: delay: { "show": 500, "hide": 100 }
html boolean false

Allow HTML in the tooltip.

If true, HTML tags in the tooltip's title will be rendered in the tooltip. If false, jQuery's text method will be used to insert content into the DOM.

Use text if you're worried about XSS attacks.
placement string | function 'top'

How to position the tooltip — top | bottom | left | right | auto.
When auto is specified, it will dynamically reorient the tooltip. For example, if the placement is "auto left", the tooltip will display to the left when possible, otherwise, it will display right.

When a function is used to determine the placement, it is called with the tooltip DOM node as its first argument and the triggering element DOM node as its second. The this context is set to the tooltip instance.
selector string | false false If a selector is provided, popover objects will be delegated to the specified targets. In practice, this is used to enable dynamic HTML content to have popovers added. See this and an informative example.
template string '<div class="tooltip" role="tooltip"><div class="arrow"></div><div class="tooltip-inner"></div></div>''

The base HTML to use when creating the tooltip.

The tooltip's title will be injected into the .tooltip-inner.

.arrow will become the tooltip's arrow.

The outermost wrapper element should have the .tooltip class and role="tooltip".
title string | element | function ''

Default title value if the title attribute isn't present.

If a function is given, it will be called with its this reference set to the element that the tooltip is attached to.
trigger string 'hover focus'

How tooltip is triggered — click | hover | focus | manual. You may pass Material triggers; separate them with a space.

'manual' indicates that the tooltip will be triggered programmatically via the .tooltip('show'), .tooltip('hide') and .tooltip('toggle') methods; this value cannot be combined with any other trigger.

'hover' on its own will result in tooltips that cannot be triggered via the keyboard, and should only be used if alternative methods for conveying the same information for keyboard users is present.

offsets string '0 0' The offset of the popover relative to its target. For more information refer to Tether's offset docs.

Data attributes for individual tooltips

Options for individual tooltips can alternatively be specified through the use of data attributes, as explained above.

Methods

Asynchronous methods and transitions

All API methods are asynchronous and start a transition. They return to the caller as soon as the transition is started but before it ends. In addition, a method call on a transitioning component will be ignored.

$().tooltip(options)

Attaches a tooltip handler to an element collection.

.tooltip('show')

Reveals an element’s tooltip. It returns to the caller before the tooltip has actually been shown (i.e. before the shown.bs.tooltip event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the tooltip. Tooltips with zero-length titles are never displayed.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('show')

.tooltip('hide')

Hides an element’s tooltip. It returns to the caller before the tooltip has actually been hidden (i.e. before the hidden.bs.tooltip event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the tooltip.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('hide')

.tooltip('toggle')

Toggles an element’s tooltip. It returns to the caller before the tooltip has actually been shown or hidden (i.e. before the shown.bs.tooltip or hidden.bs.tooltip event occurs). This is considered a “manual” triggering of the tooltip.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('toggle')

.tooltip('dispose')

Hides and destroys an element’s tooltip. Tooltips that use delegation (which are created using the selector option) cannot be individually destroyed on descendant trigger elements.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('dispose')

.tooltip('enable')

Gives an element’s tooltip the ability to be shown. Tooltips are enabled by default.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('enable')

.tooltip('disable')

Removes the ability for an element’s tooltip to be shown. The tooltip will only be able to be shown if it is re-enabled.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('disable')

.tooltip('toggleEnabled')

Toggles the ability for an element’s tooltip to be shown or hidden.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('toggleEnabled')

.tooltip('update')

Updates the position of an element’s tooltip.

Edit in sandbox 
        
            
          $('#element').tooltip('update')

Events

Event Type Description
show.bs.tooltip This event fires immediately when the show instance method is called.
shown.bs.tooltip This event is fired when the tooltip has been made visible to the user (it will wait for CSS transitions to complete).
hide.bs.tooltip This event is fired immediately when the hide instance method has been called.
hidden.bs.tooltip This event is fired when the tooltip has finished being hidden from the user (it will wait for CSS transitions to complete).
inserted.bs.tooltip This event is fired after the show.bs.tooltip event when the tooltip template has been added to the DOM.
Edit in sandbox 
        
            
        $('#myTooltip').on('hidden.bs.tooltip', function () {
        // do something…
        })