3 ms·

Is there a difference between <em> and <i>?

• sharkbrainguy 18y ago
  <em> is semantic, it means "emphasis" the default style for that in most browsers is italic. <i> is stylistic, it means "render this text in italics". for people eager to separate meaning from presentation it's a non-trivial difference.
• dangrover 18y ago
  <i> indicates that something is italic in its presentation. <em> indicates that something is emphasized and nothing more -- it may or may not be italicized in its presentation. The trend for HTML/XHTML is away from markup that denotes the presentation of something and toward markup that denotes the meaning. In i/em matters it's a pedantic discussion, but in recent standards, tags like <font> and <center> are removed entirely.
  • quizbiz 18y ago
    So <em> can be refined through css?
    • pmjordan 18y ago
      Either can, technically. Redefining the "italics" tag to be rendered as, say, smallcaps, is, however, not especially sensible. What you mean to be doing is placing an emphasis, however you may want to style that.