31 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
31 lines
2.2 KiB
Plaintext
The HTML <em> element (or HTML Emphasis Element) marks text that has stress emphasis. The <em> element can be nested, with each level of nesting indicating a greater degree of emphasis.
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Usage Note:
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Typically this element is displayed in italic type. However, it should not be used simply to apply italic styling; use the CSS styling for that purpose. Use the <cite> element to mark the title of a work (book, play, song, etc.); it is also typically styled with italic type, but carries different meaning. Use the <strong> element to mark text that has greater importance than surrounding text.
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Content categories:
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Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.
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Permitted content:
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Phrasing content.
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Tag omission:
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None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
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Permitted parent elements:
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Any element that accepts phrasing content.
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DOM interface:
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HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.
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Notes:
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The <em> element is often used to indicate an implicit or explicit contrast.
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<i> vs. <em>
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It is often confusing to new developers why there are so many elements to express emphasis on some text. <i> and <em> are perhaps one of the most common. Why use <em></em> vs <i></i>? They produce exactly the same result, right?
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Not exactly. The visual result is, by default, the same - both tags render its content in italics. But the semantic meaning is different. The <em> tag represents stress emphasis of its contents, while the <i> tag represents text that is set off from the normal prose, such as the name of a movie or book, a foreign word, or when the text refers to the definition of a word instead of representing its semantic meaning.
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An example for <em> could be: "Just do it already!", or: "We had to do something about it". A person or software reading the text would pronounce the words in italics with an emphasis.
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An example for <i> could be: "The Queen Mary sailed last night". Here, there is no added emphasis or importance on the word "Queen Mary". It is merely indicated that the object in question is not a queen named Mary, but a ship named Queen Mary . Another example for <i> could be: "The word the is an article". |