How to use em and strong

6 May 10 ,

I mentioned in a recent newsletter that you should be sure to use keywords in appropriate html elements such as headers, links, and em and strong tags. Here is a more thorough explanation of those last two.

The <em> tag : for emphasis

To use apply the <em> tag to a phrase in your text, surround it with underscores, like so:

Can you believe this blog is about using
_Textpattern_ to manage websites?

Most often, the browser will render the emphasized text in italics. However, don’t use it just for the purpose of italicizing something. It should only be used when you truly want to apply emphasis to a word or phrase.

The <strong> tag: for stronger emphasis

When you really feel strongly about something, use the <strong> tag! To do so, surround your phrase with asterisks, like so:

No, I *can't believe* it's about Textpattern,
that's *awesome*!

The usual style for this is bold text. But again, it shouldn’t be used just to achieve some bold text.

What if I just want italics or bold, or bright purple text?

Well, the first question you should ask yourself is “Why do I want italicized (or bold or purple) text? Is there some semantic reason?”

Citations, such as book or magazine names should usually be italicized, and there is a special tag, <cite>, just for that purpose.

If you have a recurring reason to put some bright purple text in your blog posts, I can easily create a special “class” which you can apply to achieve that. Just get in touch!

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