HTML Formatting
If you use a word processor, you must be familiar with the ability to make text bold,
italicized, or underlined; these are just three of the ten options available to indicate how
text can appear in HTML and XHTML.
Bold Text
Anything that appears within <b>...</b> element, is displayed in bold as shown below
−
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Bold Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <b>bold</b> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a bold typeface.
Italic Text
Anything that appears within <i>...</i> element is displayed in italicized as shown
below −
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
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<head>
<title>Italic Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses an <i>italicized</i> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses an italicized typeface.
Underlined Text
Anything that appears within <u>...</u> element, is displayed with underline as shown
below −
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Underlined Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses an <u>underlined</u> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses an underlined typeface.
Strike Text
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Anything that appears within <strike>...</strike> element is displayed with
strikethrough, which is a thin line through the text as shown below −
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Strike Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <strike>strikethrough</strike>
typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a strikethrough typeface.
Monospaced Font
The content of a <tt>...</tt> element is written in monospaced font. Most of the fonts
are known as variable-width fonts because different letters are of different widths (for
example, the letter 'm' is wider than the letter 'i'). In a monospaced font, however, each
letter has the same width.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Monospaced Font Example</title>
</head>
<body>
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<p>The following word uses a <tt>monospaced</tt>
typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a monospaced typeface.
Superscript Text
The content of a <sup>...</sup> element is written in superscript; the font size used is
the same size as the characters surrounding it but is displayed half a character's height
above the other characters.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Superscript Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <sup>superscript</sup>
typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a superscript typeface.
Subscript Text
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The content of a <sub>...</sub> element is written in subscript; the font size used is
the same as the characters surrounding it, but is displayed half a character's height
beneath the other characters.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Subscript Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <sub>subscript</sub>
typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a subscript typeface.
Inserted Text
Anything that appears within <ins>...</ins> element is displayed as inserted text.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Inserted Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>I want to drink <del>cola</del> <ins>wine</ins></p>
</body>
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</html>
This will produce the following result –
I want to drink cola wine
Deleted Text
Anything that appears within <del>...</del> element, is displayed as deleted text.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Deleted Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>I want to drink <del>cola</del> <ins>wine</ins></p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
I want to drink cola wine
Larger Text
The content of the <big>...</big> element is displayed one font size larger than the
rest of the text surrounding it as shown below −
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
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<head>
<title>Larger Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <big>big</big> typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a big typeface.
Smaller Text
The content of the <small>...</small> element is displayed one font size smaller than
the rest of the text surrounding it as shown below −
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Smaller Text Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>The following word uses a <small>small</small>
typeface.</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
The following word uses a small typeface.
Grouping Content
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The <div> and <span> elements allow you to group together several elements to
create sections or subsections of a page.
For example, you might want to put all of the footnotes on a page within a <div>
element to indicate that all of the elements within that <div> element relate to the
footnotes. You might then attach a style to this <div> element so that they appear using
a special set of style rules.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Div Tag Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id = "menu" align = "middle" >
<a href = "/index.htm">HOME</a> |
<a href = "/about/contact_us.htm">CONTACT</a> |
<a href = "/about/index.htm">ABOUT</a>
</div>
<div id = "content" align = "left" bgcolor = "white">
<h5>Content Articles</h5>
<p>Actual content goes here.....</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
HOME | CONTACT | ABOUT
Content Articles
Actual content goes here.....
The <span> element, on the other hand, can be used to group inline elements only.
So, if you have a part of a sentence or paragraph which you want to group together,
you could use the <span> element as follows.
Example
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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Span Tag Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is the example of <span style = "color:green">span
tag</span>
and the <span style = "color:red">div tag</span> alongwith
CSS</p>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result –
This is the example of span tag and the div tag along with CSS
These tags are commonly used with CSS to allow you to attach a style to a section of a
page.
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