HTML Tutorial Part-5: HTML Paragraph and HTML Text Formatting

Paragraphs are defined with the <p> tag.

Example:

<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>
Note: Browsers automatically add an empty line before and after a paragraph.

Don't Forget the End Tag

Most browsers will display HTML correctly even if you forget the end tag:

Example:

<p>This is a paragraph
<p>This is another paragraph
The example above will work in most browsers, but don't rely on it. Forgetting the end tag can produce unexpected results or errors.
Note: Future version of HTML will not allow you to skip end tags.

HTML Line Breaks:

Use the <br /> tag if you want a line break (a new line) without starting a new paragraph:

Example

<p>This is<br />a para<br />graph with line breaks</p>

he <br /> element is an empty HTML element. It has no end tag.
<br> or <br />

In XHTML, XML, elements with no end tag (closing tag) are not allowed.

Even if <br> works in all browsers, writing <br /> instead works better in XHTML and XML applications.

HTML Output - Useful Tips

You cannot be sure how HTML will be displayed. Large or small screens, and resized windows will create different results.

With HTML, you cannot change the output by adding extra spaces or extra lines in your HTML code.

The browser will remove extra spaces and extra lines when the page is displayed. Any number of lines count as one line, and any number of spaces count as one space.

HTML Text Formatting:

This text is bold

This text is big

This text is italic

This is computer output

This is subscript and superscript

HTML Formatting Tags:

HTML uses tags like <b> and <i> for formatting output, like bold or italic text.

These HTML tags are called formatting tags (look at the bottom of this page for a complete reference).
Remark     Often <strong> renders as <b>, and <em> renders as <i>.

However, there is a difference in the meaning of these tags:

<b> or <i> defines bold or italic text only.

<strong> or <em> means that you want the text to be rendered in a way that the user understands as "important". Today, all major browsers render strong as bold and em as italics. However, if a browser one day wants to make a text highlighted with the strong feature, it might be cursive for example and not bold!

HTML Text Formatting Tags

Tag	Description
<b>	Defines bold text
<big>	Defines big text
<em>	Defines emphasized text
<i>	Defines italic text
<small>	Defines small text
<strong>	Defines strong text
<sub>	Defines subscripted text
<sup>	Defines superscripted text
<ins>	Defines inserted text
<del>	Defines deleted text

HTML "Computer Output" Tags

Tag	Description
<code>	Defines computer code text
<kbd>	Defines keyboard text
<samp>	Defines sample computer code
<tt>	Defines teletype text
<var>	Defines a variable
<pre>	Defines preformatted text

HTML Citations, Quotations, and Definition Tags

Tag	Description
<abbr>	Defines an abbreviation
<acronym>	Defines an acronym
<address>	Defines contact information for the author/owner of a document
<bdo>	Defines the text direction
<blockquote>	Defines a long quotation
<q>	Defines a short quotation
<cite>	Defines a citation
<dfn>	Defines a definition term