Display text using bold font

Element indicates that the enclosed text is to be displayed using a bold font if available. It may be shown some other way if bold is not available.

        <html>
        <head>
        <title>Some Title</title>
        </head>
        <body>
            .
            .
==>>    <B>STUFF BETWEEN TAGS</B>
            .
            .
        </body>
        </html>

Use of this element instructs the browser to perform a physical formatting of the text. Some purists argue that this is against the spirit of HTML and the viewer controlling how stuff looks to them. The argument is that the HTML author should use logical elements to "suggest" to the browser what you are trying to accomplish.

In a weaker moment, I've succumbed to the purists and I am currently trying to use the logical version of this element which is the "STRONG" element. I've got to tell you though that keying those extra keystrokes is a real pain. If you don't care what the purists think then go ahead and use this element.

Another thing - in word processing packages you are allowed to specify something as bold and italics. But if you "nest" the tags and try to create that effect in HTML it might not work. The browser may bold part of a phrase and make the other part italics.

HTML 3.0 Draft

The new specification tries to draw even more of distinction between physical rendering and structural definition.

Attributes common to almost all of the tags permitted in the document body include ID, LANG and CLASS. You probably won't be using any of these tags for a while but I've included them so you know they are coming.

ID: A name to be used as a target for links or for naming particular elements in a style sheet. These take the place of the HTML 2.0 Some Name construct that defines internal document links.
LANG: An ISO standard language abbreviation that defines language specific elements to be used.
CLASS: Used to assign a class name to a tag.
An example of these attributes in use is:: Some bold text

Netscape

Nothing special.

Microsoft IE

Nothing special.

Internationalization

See HTML 3.0 portion.

The Rusk Family . . . "the Legend Continues"

Michael T. Rusk
Comments to author: mrusk@radix.net

<B></B>

Display text using bold font

Netscape

Microsoft IE

Internationalization