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Since the great Web Standards revival, we web developers have sworn off presentational mark-up. Strict HTML 4.01 and XHMTL 1 have exorcised presentational tags, such as <font> and <center>, completely out of the spec. Now, we bold with <strong> and italicize with <em>. There doesn’t seem to be a need for <b> or <i> anymore. So why are they still part of the spec?

It’s because <strong> and <em> are not replacements for <b> and <i>. They are supplements. And there are still plenty of places <b> and <i> should be used instead.

Book or movie titles are usually italicized, but it’s not to give them emphasis. It’s merely to set the text apart, or to give it formality. The <em> tag would not be appropriate in this case. Sure, a <span> with a class attribute of ‘movie-title’ could be used, and then italicized with CSS. But why not use the tag that specifically italicizes text? Using something like <i class=“movie-title”> gives the text meaning and gives it formatting for accessibility and viewing the document without styles. (By the way, the and in the last sentence was marked-up with <em> because I was giving emphasis to it, but was marked up with <i> in this sentence because I am only setting it apart.)

The semantics of <b> and <i> are found between the lines. Just like other non-semantic tags, such as <div> and <span>, they are used to group text together.

<b> and <i> have gotten a raw deal. It’s time to bring them back to their former glory!