Craigslist HTML Guide and Cheat Sheet

Have you already looked at the official Craigslist HTML guide? It is super confusing and provides little context. Craigslist even admits they don’t really keep it up to date.

Check the (infrequently updated) list of supported HTML for more details.

Craigslist.com

I had to do some digging and testing but I was able to put together the following list of Craigslist HTML codes allowed as of 2020. Some only work for certain categories, which is noted as well. If you do use HTML in your ad, it is best that the whole Craigslist ad is formatted in HTML according to Craigslist.

Formatting-wise, if you use HTML in any part of your posting you may need to use it throughout.

Craigslist.com

Aside from the above tips and HTML code table (shown below), there isn’t much else to glean from the official page.

Craigslist HTML Codes Cheat sheet

Below is a table of all of the HTML tags supported by Craigslist. Some of these tags only work in certain categories. Scroll down to the next section if you’re wanting to see which categories support these restricted HTML tags.

HTML Tag	Attributes and/or Values	Additional Notes
<b><u><i>	none
<font>	size=[2, 3, 4, 5, 6] color=[black, blue, fuchsia, green, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, teal]
<p>	align=[left,right,justify]
<br>	clear=[left, all, right, none]
<blockquote>	none
<hr>	align=[left, center, right] size=[<pixels>] width=[<pixels>]
<h1><h2><h3><h4><h5><h6>	align=[left, center, right]
<ul><ol><li>	none
<dl><dd><dt>	none
<a>	href=”https://www.example.com/”
<img>	src=”https://www.example.com/kittens.jpg”
<pre>	none
<table>	border=[<pixels>]
<tr>	none
<th><td>	colspan=[<num>] rowspan=[<num>]
<strike>	none	The strikethrough tag works even through it is not on the official Craigslist HTML guide.
<big>	none	The big tag works even through it is not on the official Craigslist HTML guide.

Which Craigslist Categories Support HTML?

The following Craigslist HTML guide is organized by ad posting category. Click on options below to filter the cheat sheet for a specific category. Some of the filters include multiple subcategories so be sure to scroll down after selecting a filter to see all of the options.

Craigslist HTML Examples

Before using any of these Craigslist HTML examples, be sure to check your ad categories above to ensure it allows links. Already verified your Craigslist ad category allows links? Let’s jump into some examples of how your can use HTML in a Craigslist ad.

Hyperlink (clickable link)

This is a part of the ad copy while <a href="https://www.yourwebsite.com">this text is a clickable link</a> that you can use in a Craigslist ad.

Image Tag

Keep in mind that there is a 600 x 450 pixel image size limit when posting an ad on Craigslist.

<img src="https://dealerpromoterpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/DPP-Logo-Banner-1000x174.png"  alt="Dealer Promoter Pro company logo" width="50" height="60" align="right">I added in some extra attributes to control the alignment, size, and alternative text (e.g. used by search engines) but the only required field is the source attribute.

Font Tag

The font tag can be used to specify the <font color="red" face="Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif" size="+1">font face, font size, and color</font> of text.

HTML Table Tags

 <table>
  <tr>
    <th>First Column Heading</th>
    <th>Second Column Heading</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>data in first row</td>
    <td>first row, second column</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Another</td>
    <td>Example/td>
  </tr>
</table> 

Div Tag

<div>The div tag is create a break after all of the content, including images, within the starting and the end tag.</div>This is outside of the tags and will start a new line.

Center Tag

<center>Any text or images between these center tags will be centered on the content area.</center>

Additional Tips for the Craigslist HTML Guide

• Outdated tags – Craigslist technically supports deprecated tags (i.e. no longer supported by HTML5), like the <font> tag. The weird thing is this makes it tougher for users since most HTML generators aim to support the most current code.
• Some unlisted tags work – Craigslist has a guide for HTML but it is updated so there are a number of tags, like strikethrough and big, that will still work even though they are not officially listed.
• Be cautious with <table> tag – The traditional HTML table doesn’t format well on mobile phones. Keep the number of columns and width small so the website visitor will like have to know to scroll to the side to find all the info in the table.
• Further Reading – The W3Schools website is a great resource for looking up further details on how best to use the HTML tags referenced in this article.
• Adding Video – Embedding a video is not allowed at this time but there is clever method for adding a video preview image link to a Craigslist ad.