# Summary elements By default, Writerside uses the first paragraph in a topic as a summary for link and card popups, and web descriptions. It is good practice to provide a summary of the content as the intro paragraph, so that readers have a way to quickly evaluate whether the content is applicable to what they are looking for. However, there are ways to provide the summary as a different paragraph or some custom text that will not be part of the topic content. ## Link summary Use the [<link-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#link-summary) element to define text that you want to appear in a popup when the reader hovers over a link to this topic. ```XML Use link summaries to provide context for links. ``` [Link with summary](#link-summary) The text in the [<link-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#link-summary) element will not appear in the topic content. Use the [rel](semantic-markup-reference.html#link-summary_rel) attribute to specify an existing paragraph as the link summary: ```XML ...

Use this paragraph as a link summary

``` Use the `summary` attribute on a [<a>](semantic-markup-reference.html#a) link to override the link summary: ```XML Some link ``` ## Card summary Use the [<card-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#card-summary) element to define text that you want to appear in cards as links to topics. These cards are used in [Starting pages](section-starting-page.html) and [See also](links-and-references.html#see-also) with `style="cards"`. ```XML Use card summaries to provide context for cards. ``` For example, see the [See also](links-and-references.html#see-also) block at the bottom of this page. The text in the [<card-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#card-summary) element will not appear in the topic content. Use the [rel](semantic-markup-reference.html#card-summary_rel) attribute to specify an existing paragraph as the card summary: ```XML ...

Use this paragraph as a card summary

``` Use the `summary` attribute on a [<a>](semantic-markup-reference.html#a) link to override the card summary: ```XML ``` ## Web summary Use the [<web-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#web-summary) element to define text for the [<meta name="description">](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/special-tags) tag for the HTML page that search engines can use to produce snippets in search results. Messengers and social media platforms can also use the `meta` description tag to provide preview text for links to your documentation pages. > **Note:** > Although the `meta` description tag has priority when a search engine generates the snippet, it is not guaranteed. The search engine may consider some other content more relevant for a specific query. The text in the [<web-summary>](semantic-markup-reference.html#web-summary) element will not appear in the topic content. Use the [rel](semantic-markup-reference.html#web-summary_rel) attribute to specify an existing paragraph as the web summary: ```XML ...

Use this paragraph as a web summary

``` ## See also ### Related topics [Card summary](links-and-references.html#see-also)