An easy way to <strong> bold?

[tekkie]

I'm working with a client who likes to sprinkle a bolded word or short phrase here and there throughout the text. Even though I want to stick with CSS, it seems much easier to just put in a<strong></strong> where this occurs instead of writing out <span style: font-weight="bold"></span> everytime. Even using something like <span class="b"></span> is more time consuming than <strong>.

Is there a shorter way designate bold using CSS?

tekkie

[AutisticCuckoo]

If you want boldfacing in general, use <b>...</b>.

If you want strong emphasis, use <strong>...</strong>. That has nothing to do with boldfacing, though.

If you want to mark up something with a semantic meaning, for which there is no appropriate element type, use <span class="product">...</span> or whatever, depending on what the boldfaced text represents. Then style that class to yield boldfacing with CSS.

[tekkie]

How embarrassing...somewhere in the past I was taught <b> was a deprecated tag and <strong> was the recommended replacement! Thanks for setting me straight.

And that makes my coding much easier.

[kigoobe]

somewhere in the past I was taught <b> was a deprecated tag and <strong> was the recommended replacement!

So do I. Thanks AutisticCuckoo.

[Dan Schulz]

It's not deprecated, it's just that its use is well-defined, and for what most people want to use it for has nothing to do with what it should be used for.

[markbrown4]

somewhere in the past I was taught <b> was a deprecated tag and <strong> was the recommended replacement!

Well, I disagree with Tommy so I must be wrong
But HTML is only meant to provide meaning (semantics) to content, not to be mixed with presentational information. So I would never use <b> or <i> - <strong> and <em> on the other hand add additional weight to the words I want to be.. stronger or have more emphasis

Edit:

If you want strong emphasis, use <strong>...</strong>. That has nothing to do with boldfacing, though.

I understand where you are coming from but this is misleading as most people typically use boldface to give a stronger emphasis to text
This comment actually reminds of the "ways to confuse a web developer stylesheet".

strong {
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: normal;
}
em {
  font-style: normal;
  font-weight: bold;
}

[Dan Schulz]

Start coding blog themes - you'll start to think otherwise. (For example, in the blog sidebars, I use <b> instead of <strong> or even headings, since I'm not providing strong emphasis on a category title and I reserve headings for the blog entries.)

[disgracian]

There are still valid uses for both, such as italicising the names of boats or movies. The word shouldn't be emphasised, but it is an aesthetic convention of the written word.

Cheers,
D.

[Dark Tranquility]

Well, I disagree with Tommy so I must be wrong
But HTML is only meant to provide meaning (semantics) to content, not to be mixed with presentational information. So I would never use <b> or <i> - <strong> and <em> on the other hand add additional weight to the words I want to be.. stronger or have more emphasis

Well I agree! <b> is only used for presentational effects! and should be in CSS IMO!
That does not mean that your site won't validate if you use <b>s though!

[AutisticCuckoo]

The B element type isn't deprecated, although it is presentational. See the HTML FAQ (scroll down to 'Should I replace B/I with STRONG/EM?').

Well, I disagree with Tommy so I must be wrong

Yes, by definition!

So I would never use <b> or <i> - <strong> and <em> on the other hand add additional weight to the words I want to be.. stronger or have more emphasis

Agreed. If you want to mark up emphasis, use EM. STRONG is an odd bird here; I now mainly use it for page elements that need to be emphasised (like a 'current page' indicator).

However, if you want to highlight something without adding semantic emphasis, EM and STRONG are the wrong choice. I and B can be perfectly useful here, at least if there's a typographic convention on which to fall back. You can use a SPAN and a class, of cource, but that only adds bloat, not semantics.

I understand where you are coming from but this is misleading as most people typically use boldface to give a stronger emphasis to text

That's neither here nor there. There are typographic conventions that go back a long time. In printed documents the preferred way of indicating emphasis is to italicise the text; hence the default rendering of EM is italic. Stronger emphasis is indicated through boldfacing; hence the default rendering of STRONG is bold.

That doesn't imply that EM means italic or that STRONG means bold, though. They only indicate emphasis. You could just as well make the text size larger, change the font face, use another colour, or underline the text (although the latter isn't very clever on the web).

As you said, Mark, HTML is about semantics, not presentation. If you want to emphasise something, use <em>...</em>. If you want that emphasis to show as boldfacing, use CSS to alter the rendering of EM, instead of using <strong>...</strong> if you don't really mean strong emphasis.

And if you don't want to emphasise, but to make some text stand out for some other reason, you can use I or B. You can even style those with CSS, if you like.

[markbrown4]

I bet you're sick of this question being asked

However, if you want to highlight something without adding semantic emphasis

If you don't want to add any kind of emphasis then don't make it bold or italic!

And if you don't want to emphasise, but to make some text stand out for some other reason

To make something stand out is to emphasise it. <- Note the bold text here to emphasise that word. Also please note how it stands out from the other text

I really enjoy arguing semantics with you Tommy.

[Karpie]

And I love reading all these semantic discussions

*runs*

[AutisticCuckoo]

If you don't want to add any kind of emphasis then don't make it bold or italic!

There are long-standing typographic conventions that some of us may not be willing to give up. One example is that names of ships should be italicised. That doesn't mean there's any semantic emphasis on the name, though.

To make something stand out is to emphasise it.

Yes, but you need to understand the difference between visual emphasis and semantic emphasis.

You may want to make the name of your product to stand out, visually, on your company website. But that doesn't mean it should be semantically emphasised.

Imagine the page being read out loud by a screen reader or some other type of speech synthesiser. If you want a word or a phrase to be audibly emphasised, you should use EM (or, possibly, STRONG). The synthetic voice may increase the volume, slow down a bit, perhaps alter the tone.

But you may not want that for your product name, since it would sound like really bad advertising. You may want it to be read as any other word, but you might still want it to stand out a little, visually. If you don't want to use a different colour, type face or size, you may choose to boldface it. In this case, the B element type could be appropriate.

[markbrown4]

But you may not want that for your product name, since it would sound like really bad advertising

I would have thought the bits that you wanted to stand out visually are the same parts of the page you would want to stand out aurally.

But you've got a damn good point about the ships!

[AutisticCuckoo]

I would have thought the bits that you wanted to stand out visually are the same parts of the page you would want to stand out aurally.

Probably, but the degree of control we have over contemporary aural user agents and assistive technologies isn't enough. The difference between normal and emphasised is too large for that sort of subtle emphasis.

[markbrown4]

Do strong tags frighten the begeesus out of them?
Mark-up semantics, not to the user agent and not for presentational.

Mark wins!

[Paul O'B]

This is for visual effect and no other reason so I used b tags.

See Tantek's reply in this thread.