HTML Formatting Tags

In order to display a bold or italic text in HTML, we use the formatting tags.

There are two types of tags:

1. PHYSICAL tags
2. LOGICAL tags

As Scripting Master describes the difference as follows...

a physical character tag controls how the characters are formatted. For instance, you might display some characters as bold or italic. Listing 1 displays some common physical character tags. 

HTML code	Output
This is <b>bold</b>	This is bold
This is <big>big font</big>	This is big font
This is <i>italic</i>	This is italic
Was <s>$50</s>; now $40	Was $50; now $40
This is <small>small</small>	This is small
H<sub>2</sub>O	H2O
May 5<sup>th</sup> 2005	May 5th 2005
<tt>fixed-width font</tt>	fixed-width font
This is <u>underlined</u>	This is underlined

A logical character tag describes how the text is being used, not necessarily how it is formatted. Listing 3 displays common examples logical character tags. 

HTML code	Output
This is used for a short <cite>quote</cite>.	This is used for a short quote.
<code>y = m * x + b</code>	y = m * x + b
<del>Deleted</del> text	Deleted text
<dfn>definition</dfn> text	definition text
This is <em> emphasized </em>.	This is emphasized .
<ins>inserted</ins> text	inserted text
<kbd>code</kbd> sample	code sample
<samp>code</samp> sample	code sample
This is <strong>strong</strong>.	This is strong.
<var>program</var> variable	program variable