The presentation of XBRL reports in human-readable form - known as 'rendering' in XBRL parlance - is a vital aspect of the filing of data in XBRL.

The UK has adopted Inline XBRL as the standard form of presentation of business reports tagged in XBRL. Effectively, this enables the presentation of a report in normal, human-readable (X)HTML format, with XBRL tags embedded within it. The latter are not normally visible to a human reader, but can be displayed with suitable software when required.

Preparers and consumers of reports can thus read the reports in the normal way but also check the scope and accuracy of tagging when required. Computer software can read the tags and process and analyse the XBRL data. They can also create standard XBRL files of the data, known as instance documents.

Other mechanisms are also available to render XBRL reports. These include 'stylesheets' using in the filing of audit exempt company data to Companies House. Links to further information on rendering are provided below.

Inline XBRL

Inline XBRL enables the embedding of XBRL data within a human-readable file. This allows a single file to provide both a human-readable view of a business report and the related XBRL data. A valid XBRL instance document may be recreated from the Inline XBRL document. The link above points to the current specification for Inline XBRL and related supporting material.

Examples of accounts in Inline XBRL are available from the XBRL Samples page.