HTML - Phrase Tags

The phrase tags have been desicolgned for specific purposes, though they are displayed in a similar way as other basic tags like <b>, <i>, <pre>, and <tt>, you have seen in previous chapter. This chapter will take you through all the important phrase tags, so let's start seeing them one by one.

Emphasized Text

Anything that appears within <em>...</em> element is displayed as emphasized text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Emphasized Text Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>The following word uses an <em>emphasized</em> typeface.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Marked Text

Anything that appears with-in <mark>...</mark> element, is displayed as marked with yellow ink.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Marked Text Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>The following word has been <mark>marked</mark> with yellow</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Strong Text

Anything that appears within <strong>...</strong> element is displayed as important text.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Strong Text Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>The following word uses a <strong>strong</strong> typeface.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Text Abbreviation

You can abbreviate a text by putting it inside opening <abbr> and closing </abbr> tags. If present, the title attribute must contain this full description and nothing else.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Text Abbreviation</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>My best friend's name is  <abbr title = "Abhishek">Abhy</abbr>.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Acronym Element

The <acronym> element allows you to indicate that the text between <acronym> and </acronym> tags is an acronym.

At present, the major browsers do not change the appearance of the content of the <acronym> element.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Acronym Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>This chapter covers marking up text in <acronym>XHTML</acronym>.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Text Direction

The <bdo>...</bdo> element stands for Bi-Directional Override and it is used to override the current text direction.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Text Direction Example</title>
   </head>

   <body>
      <p>This text will go left to right.</p>
      <p><bdo dir = "rtl">This text will go right to left.</bdo></p>
   </body>

</html>

This will produce the following result −

Special Terms

The <dfn>...</dfn> element (or HTML Definition Element) allows you to specify that you are introducing a special term. It's usage is similar to italic words in the midst of a paragraph.

Typically, you would use the <dfn> element the first time you introduce a key term. Most recent browsers render the content of a <dfn> element in an italic font.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Special Terms Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>The following word is a <dfn>special</dfn> term.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Quoting Text

When you want to quote a passage from another source, you should put it in between <blockquote>...</blockquote> tags.

Text inside a <blockquote> element is usually indented from the left and right edges of the surrounding text, and sometimes uses an italicized font.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Blockquote Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>The following description of XHTML is taken from the W3C Web site:</p>

      <blockquote>XHTML 1.0 is the W3C's first Recommendation for XHTML,following on 
         from earlier work on HTML 4.01, HTML 4.0, HTML 3.2 and HTML 2.0.</blockquote>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Short Quotations

The <q>...</q> element is used when you want to add a double quote within a sentence.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

   <head>
      <title>Double Quote Example</title>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <p>Amit is in Spain, <q>I think I am wrong</q>.</p>
   </body>
	
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Text Citations

If you are quoting a text, you can indicate the source placing it between an opening <cite> tag and closing </cite> tag

As you would expect in a print publication, the content of the <cite> element is rendered in italicized text by default.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Citations Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <p>This HTML tutorial is derived from <cite>W3 Standard for HTML</cite>.</p>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Computer Code

Any programming code to appear on a Web page should be placed inside <code>...</code> tags. Usually the content of the <code> element is presented in a monospaced font, just like the code in most programming books.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Computer Code Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <p>Regular text. <code>This is code.</code> Regular text.</p>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Keyboard Text

When you are talking about computers, if you want to tell a reader to enter some text, you can use the <kbd>...</kbd> element to indicate what should be typed in, as in this example.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Keyboard Text Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <p>Regular text. <kbd>This is inside kbd element</kbd> Regular text.</p>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Programming Variables

This element is usually used in conjunction with the <pre> and <code> elements to indicate that the content of that element is a variable.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Variable Text Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <p><code>document.write("<var>user-name</var>")</code></p>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Program Output

The <samp>...</samp> element indicates sample output from a program, and script etc. Again, it is mainly used when documenting programming or coding concepts.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Program Output Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <p>Result produced by the program is <samp>Hello World!</samp></p>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

Address Text

The <address>...</address> element is used to contain any address.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   
   <head>
      <title>Address Example</title>
   </head>
   
   <body>
      <address>388A, Road No 22, Jubilee Hills -  Hyderabad</address>
   </body>
   
</html>

This will produce the following result −

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