Summary
The HTML <b>
Element represents a span of text stylistically different from normal text, without conveying any special importance or relevance. It is typically used for keywords in a summary, product names in a review, or other spans of text whose typical presentation would be boldfaced. Another example of its use is to mark the lead sentence of each paragraph of an article.
Usage Notes :
- Do not confuse the
<b>
element with the<strong>
,<em>
, or<mark>
elements. The<strong>
element represents text of certain importance,<em>
puts some emphasis on the text and the<mark>
element represents text of certain relevance. The<b>
element doesn't convey such special semantic information; use it only when no others fit. - Similarly, do not mark titles and headings using the
<b>
element. For this purpose, use the<h1>
to<h6>
tags. Further, stylesheets can change the default style of these elements, with the result that they are not necessarily displayed in bold. - It is a good practice to use the class attribute on the
<b>
in order to convey additional semantic information (for example<b class="lead">
for the first sentence in a paragraph). This eases the development of several stylings of a web document, without the need to change its HTML code. - Historically, the
<b>
element was meant to make text boldface. Styling information has been deprecated since HTML4, so the meaning of the<b>
element has been changed. - If there is no semantic purpose on using the <b> element, using css property font-weight with bold value would be a better choice for making text bold.
Content categories | Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content. |
---|---|
Permitted content | Phrasing content. |
Tag omission | None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory. |
Permitted parent elements | Any element that accepts phrasing content. |
DOM interface | HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element. |
Attributes
This element only includes the global attributes.
Example
<p> This article describes several <b>text-level</b> elements. It explains their usage in an <b>HTML</b> document. </p> Keywords are displayed with the default style of the <b> element, likely in bold.
Result
This article describes several text-level elements. It explains their usage in an HTML document.
Keywords are displayed with the default style of the <b> element, likely in bold.
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of '<b>' in that specification. |
Living Standard | |
HTML5 The definition of '<b>' in that specification. |
Recommendation | |
HTML 4.01 Specification The definition of '<b>' in that specification. |
Recommendation |
Browser compatibility
Feature | Chrome | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes) | 1.0 (1.7 or earlier) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |
Feature | Android | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes) | 1.0 (1.0) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |
See also
- Others elements conveying text-level semantics:
<a>
,<em>
,<strong>
,<small>
,<cite>
,<q>
,<dfn>
,<abbr>
,<time>
,<code>
,<var>
,<samp>
,<kbd>
,<sub>
,<sup>
,<i>
,<mark>
,<ruby>
,<rp>
,<rt>
,<bdo>
,<span>
,<br>
,<wbr>
. - Using <b> and <i> elements (W3C)