<i> and <b> versus <em> and <strong>

[rooshk34]

I've been wondering for awhile whether I should using <i> tags and <b> tags more or if I should be using <em> and <strong> tags. I like to do pretty much all of that stuff in CSS, but I've just been curious about which is more current (or if each should be used differently).

[ray326]

The former are purely presentational whereas the latter carry semantic meaning so the current best practice would be to use the latter.

[rooshk34]

That's kind of what I thought. Just for my own curiosity's sake, what difference could it hypothetically make in a Web page?

[ray326]

It'll make a difference to people that don't view the page with their eyes.

[felgall]

The semantic use of <i> and <b> is when your page is about typography and you are demonstrating the use of italic and bold versions of fonts.

For situations where you want to apply emphesis use <em> and <strong>. In browsers that display the page these will make the text italic or bold by default while those browsers that speak the text (or use braille etc) will apply an appropriate method of adding emphesis for those browsers.