HTML Text Formatting

HTML Text Formatting

This text is bold

This text is italic

This is computer output

This is _subscript and ^superscript

Try it yourself »

 

HTML Formatting Tags

HTML uses tags like <b> and <i> for formatting output, like bold or italic text.

These HTML tags are called formatting tags (look at the bottom of this page for a complete reference).
Remark     Often <strong> renders as <b>, and <em> renders as <i>.

However, there is a difference in the meaning of these tags:

<b> or <i> defines bold or italic text only.

<strong> or <em> means that you want the text to be rendered in a way that the user understands as "important". Today, all major browsers render strong as bold and em as italics. However, if a browser one day wants to make a text highlighted with the strong feature, it might be cursive for example and not bold!  

 

 HTML Text Formatting Tags

Tag                 Description
<b>        Defines bold text
<em>      Defines emphasized text
<i>          Defines a part of text in an alternate voice or mood
<small>   Defines smaller text
<strong> Defines important text
<sub>     Defines subscripted text
<sup>     Defines superscripted text
<ins>      Defines inserted text
<del>      Defines deleted text

HTML "Computer Output" Tags
Tag                  Description
<code>   Defines computer code text
<kbd>     Defines keyboard text
<samp>   Defines sample computer code
<var>      Defines a variable
<pre>      Defines preformatted text

HTML Citations, Quotations, and Definition Tags
Tag                         Description
<abbr>           Defines an abbreviation or acronym
<address>      Defines contact information for the author/owner of a document
<bdo>            Defines the text direction
<blockquote> Defines a section that is quoted from another source
<q>                Defines an inline (short) quotation
<cite>             Defines the title of a work
<dfn>              Defines a definition term