Bad value “virtual” for attribute “wrap” on element “textarea”.

The wrap attribute on a <textarea> controls how text is wrapped when the form is submitted. The value "virtual" was used by some older browsers (notably early versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer) as a proprietary alternative to what the HTML Standard now calls "soft". Since "virtual" was never part of any formal HTML specification, the W3C validator correctly rejects it as an invalid value.

The HTML Standard defines only two valid values for wrap:

• soft (the default): The text is visually wrapped in the browser for display purposes, but no actual line break characters are inserted into the submitted form data. The server receives the text as continuous lines.
• hard: The browser inserts carriage return + line feed (CRLF) characters at the visual wrap points when the form is submitted, so the server receives the text with hard line breaks. When using wrap="hard", you must also specify the cols attribute so the browser knows where the wrap points are.

Since "virtual" was functionally identical to "soft", replacing it is straightforward. If you omit the wrap attribute altogether, the browser defaults to soft wrapping, which gives you the same behavior.

Why this matters

Using non-standard attribute values can lead to unpredictable behavior across browsers. While most modern browsers will likely fall back to soft wrapping when they encounter an unrecognized wrap value, this is not guaranteed by any specification. Sticking to valid values ensures consistent, cross-browser behavior and keeps your markup standards-compliant.

How to fix it

1. Replace wrap="virtual" with wrap="soft" for an explicit equivalent.
2. Remove the wrap attribute entirely if you want the default soft wrapping behavior.
3. Use wrap="hard" with a cols attribute if you actually need hard line breaks inserted on submission.

Examples

❌ Invalid: using the non-standard "virtual" value

<form>
  <label for="msg">Message</label>
  <textarea id="msg" name="msg" wrap="virtual"></textarea>
</form>

This triggers the error: Bad value “virtual” for attribute “wrap” on element “textarea”.

✅ Fixed: using wrap="soft" (equivalent to "virtual")

<form>
  <label for="msg">Message</label>
  <textarea id="msg" name="msg" wrap="soft"></textarea>
</form>

✅ Fixed: omitting wrap entirely (defaults to "soft")

<form>
  <label for="msg">Message</label>
  <textarea id="msg" name="msg"></textarea>
</form>

Since "soft" is the default, removing the attribute produces identical behavior and cleaner markup.

✅ Fixed: using wrap="hard" with cols

If you need the submitted text to include line breaks at wrap points, use wrap="hard" and specify cols:

<form>
  <label for="msg">Message</label>
  <textarea id="msg" name="msg" wrap="hard" cols="60" rows="6"></textarea>
</form>

Note that cols is required when using wrap="hard". Omitting it will trigger a separate validation error.

Other legacy values to watch for

The value "virtual" isn’t the only non-standard wrap value from the early web. You may also encounter wrap="physical" (the legacy equivalent of "hard") or wrap="off" (which disabled wrapping). Neither is valid in modern HTML. Replace "physical" with "hard" (and add cols), and replace "off" by removing the attribute and using CSS (white-space: nowrap; or overflow-wrap: normal;) to control visual wrapping if needed.

Learn more:

MDN Reference

<textarea>: The Textarea element - wrap attribute

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MDN Reference

HTML textarea element - MDN

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WHATWG Spec

HTML Standard - Form elements

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