HTML Tag

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The tag is used to define a part of the text in a different voice. The text placed within the tag is usually displayed in italic. This tag is used to define technical terms, phrases from foreign languages, etc.

The tag is an element of a physical markup, that is, the embedded text differs only visually and is not perceived as important by browsers and search engines.

In the earlier specification, the tag was just a presentational element that was used to show a text in italic. But now it defines the semantics and not the typographic display. If not defined, browsers can still display the content of the tag in italic. If you want to style the content in italic, it’s better to use the CSS font-style property instead of .

Sometimes you may need to use other, more appropriate elements:

for relevance,
for stronger importance,
<cite> for marking the name of a book.

If you want to highlight an important text, then use the semantic markup tag instead of the tag.

Syntax

The tag comes in pairs. The content is written between the opening () and closing () tags.

Example of the HTML tag:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title of the document</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Before the end of the week <i>it is vital to</i> finish all the work.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Try it Yourself »

Result

Attributes

The tag supports the Global Attributes and the Event Attributes.

How to style tag?

Common properties to alter the visual weight/emphasis/size of text in tag:

CSS font-style property sets the style of the font. normal | italic | oblique | initial | inherit.
CSS font-family property specifies a prioritized list of one or more font family names and/or generic family names for the selected element.
CSS font-size property sets the size of the font.
CSS font-weight property defines whether the font should be bold or thick.
CSS text-transform property controls text case and capitalization.
CSS text-decoration property specifies the decoration added to text, and is a shorthand property for text-decoration-line, text-decoration-color, text-decoration-style.

Coloring text in tag:

CSS color property describes the color of the text content and text decorations.
CSS background-color property sets the background color of an element.

Text layout styles for tag:

CSS text-indent property specifies the indentation of the first line in a text block.
CSS text-overflow property specifies how overflowed content that is not displayed should be signalled to the user.
CSS white-space property specifies how white-space inside an element is handled.
CSS word-break property specifies where the lines should be broken.

Other properties worth looking at for tag:

CSS text-shadow property adds shadow to text.
CSS text-align-last property sets the alignment of the last line of the text.
CSS line-height property specifies the height of a line.
CSS letter-spacing property defines the spaces between letters/characters in a text.
CSS word-spacing property sets the spacing between words.