The Presentational Tag Zoo
dead tags 1995 partlyEight tags for making text look different, most of which say the same thing twice.
In 2026: They all still render, because breaking the old web is worse than carrying them. But B and I now mean something different from STRONG and EM, S and U are back with new meanings, and STRIKE, TT, BIG and FONT are gone from the spec.
Where it came from: HTML 3.2 and HTML 4.01, W3C, 1997 and 1999. MDN ↗
<b>bold</b> and <strong>strong</strong> look identical but no longer mean the same thing.
<i>italic</i> and <em>emphasis</em>, likewise.
<strike>struck out</strike>, <s>also struck out</s>, and
<del>deleted</del> are three tags for one line through some words.
<tt>teletype</tt> and <code>code</code> and <kbd>keyboard</kbd> and
<samp>sample</samp> are four monospace tags.
<big>bigger</big> and <small>smaller</small>.
<u>underlined</u>, which for twenty years meant "this looks like a link but is not".
<font face="Comic Sans MS" size="5" color="#FF00FF">and the font tag</font>