Internationalization (i18n)

Making the World Wide Web worldwide!


News by category
News archives
July 2011 (13)
July 2009 (10)
June 2009 (10)
June 2008 (13)
Search news

New article: Using b and i elements

Answers the question: Should I use b and i elements?

The HTML5 specification redefines b and i elements to have some semantic function, rather than purely presentational. However, the simple fact that the tag names are ‘b’ for bold and ‘i’ for italic means that people are likely to continue using them as a quick presentational fix.

This article explains why that can be problematic for localization (and indeed for restyling of pages in a single language), and echoes the advice in the specification intended to address those issues.

By Richard Ishida, W3C.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Before you comment here, note that your IP address is sent to Akismet, the plugin we use to mitigate spam comments.


Copyright © 2025 World Wide Web Consortium.
W3C® liability, trademark and permissive license rules apply.

Questions or comments? xfq@w3.org