Character-Level Elements

Physical Styles

Logical Styles

• <em> element
• <strong> element
• <code> element
• <samp> element
• <kbd> element
• <var> element
• <dfn> element
• <cite> element
• <dfn> element
• <abbr> element
• <acronym> element

The <em> Element: This tag indicates that the characters are to be emphasized in some way; that is, they're formatted differently from the rest of the text. In graphical browsers, typically <em> italicizes the text. For example:

<p>The anteater is the <em>strangest</em> looking animal, isn't it?</p>

The <strong> Element: With this tag, the characters are to be more strongly emphasized than with <em> usually in boldface. Consider the following:

<p>Take a <strong>left turn</strong> at <strong>Dee's Hop Stop</strong></p>

The <code> Element: This tag indicates that the text inside is a code sample and displays it in a fixed-width font such as Courier. For example:

<p><code>#include "trans.h"</code></p>

The <samp> Element: This tag indicates sample text and is generally presented in a fixed-width font, like <code>. An example of its usage follows:

<p>The URL for that page is <samp>http://www.yourfirstwebsite.net/
</samp></p>

The <kbd> Element: This tag indicates text that's intended to be typed by a user. It's also presented in a fixed-width font. Consider the following:

<p>Type the following command: <kbd>find . -name "prune" -print</kbd></p>

The <var> Element: This tag indicates the name of a variable, or some entity to be replaced with an actual value. Often it's displayed as italic or underline, and is used as follows:

<p><code>chown</code> <var>your_name for the_file </var></p>

The <dfn> Element: This tag indicates a definition. <dfn> is used to highlight a word (usually in italics) that will be defined or has just been defined, as in the following example:

<p>Styles that are named after how they are 
actually used are called <dfn>logical styles</dfn></p>

The <cite> Element: This tag indicates a short quote or citation, as in the following:

<p>Eggplant has been known to cause nausea in some people<cite>
 (Lemay, 1994)</cite></p>

The <abbr> Element: This tag indicates the abbreviation of a word, as in the following:

<p>Use the standard two-letter state abbreviation
(such as <abbr>CA</abbr> for California)</p>

The <acronym> Element: Similar to the <abbr> tag, <acronym> designates a word formed by combining the initial letters of several words, as in the following example:

<p>Jonathan learned his great problem-handling skills
from <acronym>STEPS</acronym> (Simply Tackle Each 
Problem
Seriously)</p>

Try all this tags out

Physical Styles

<b> Bold
<i> Italic
<tt> Monospaced typewriter font
<u> Underline (deprecated in HTML 4.0)
<s> Strikethrough (deprecated in HTML 4.0)
<big> Bigger print than the surrounding text
<small> Smaller print
<sub> Subscript
<sup> Superscript

Formatting Text's lessons: