Italics need an element?

HTML-CSS
1

why does italics need an element?

2

HTML is a markup language, so some of the elements which you come across are used to style (or markup) the content in some way or other. You can make text bold with <b> or italicise text with <i> for instance.

In accessibility terms, it means that screen readers etc can more easily interpret what they’re seeing, as opposed to styling text for emphasis/importance in CSS.

There are also other options:

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3

Also, it doesn’t.

p {
  font-style: italic;
}

The <i> element is an old element and just like the <b> is from before CSS was what it is now. We didn’t initially have a clear separation of concerns so we have a bunch of old HTML element that does visual non-semantic stuff, including layout element like <center>. The semantic versions of the two elements are <em> and <strong>.

1 Like
4

thanks guys, makes complete sense now and gave me some broad objectice insight. appreciate it!

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5

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