AMP

Include an image

Most HTML tags can be used directly in AMP, but certain tags, such as the <img> tag, must be replaced with their AMP equivalents. See HTML tags in the specification for a full list.

We’ll add an image to our page, the AMP way, with the <amp-img> tag. Copy and paste the code below into the <body>.

<amp-img src="https://source.unsplash.com/random/600x400" width="600" height="400"></amp-img>

AMP replaces certain default HTML tags for the following reasons:

  • To project the layout of the page before assets load. This ensures layout stability for a better user experience.
  • To control network requests so that resources are lazy loaded and resources are prioritized effectively.

The AMP team is working to support native <img> tags on valid AMP pages. See this GitHub issue for more information and current progress.

Make your image responsive

One of the powerful benefits of AMP is its layout system. AMP's layout system makes it very easy to implement responsive images that automatically adjust their size to the available space on a page. The best thing is: it does this in a way that ensures layout stability and avoids content jumps. We can quickly make our image responsive by adding layout="responsive" to the <amp-img> tag. Try it yourself by updating your amp-img to match the code below then change the preview window size in the playground.

<amp-img src="https://source.unsplash.com/Ji_G7Bu1MoM/600x400" width="600" height="400" layout="responsive"></amp-img>

Our image now fits snugly in our viewport and grows or shrinks when the viewport size changes!

Modify layout

While non-AMP pages may almost exclusively use CSS to layout elements, AMP enforces stricter rules to avoid content layout shift and other performance reasons. All AMP components require a layout and each layout has different dimension declaration requirements. For example, our image has the responsive layout, which requires width and height. If you remove the width attribute from the <amp-img> the playground will display a validation error! But, don’t fret, there are several ways we can fix this! One way is to add the width attribute back, but another is to change the defined layout attribute. Try updating “responsive” to “fixed-height”.

<amp-img src="https://source.unsplash.com/Ji_G7Bu1MoM/600x400" height="400" layout="fixed-height"></amp-img>

And there, our validation error is gone! This type of flexibility in layout lets us work with what we know, such as a pre-determined height but not the width, while still guaranteeing a good experience for end users! View all the available layouts in Demonstrating AMP layouts and learn about how AMP renders and layouts a page and how you can modify the layout in Layout & Media queries.