Description

The HTML element <em> is used to define an emphasized text, which is usually displayed in italics on browsers.

The screen readers will stress the text in the <em> element.

NOTE: All the below elements are displayed in italics on browsers but they convey different meanings to the browsers.

  • Elements <cite> and <em> provide a semantic meaning, whereas the element <i> doesn't add any semantic meaning.
  • Element <em> emphasizes the text, whereas the <cite> element indicates a citation or a reference to another source.

The below table summarizes its usage.

Usage Details
Placement It is displayed as an Inline element.
Contents It can contain Inline elements and text.
Tags Both opening and closing tags are required.
Versions HTML 2, 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5

Syntax

Here is the basic syntax of the <em> element.

<em>...</em>

Examples

In the below example, the <em> element is used to emphasize an important text in a paragraph.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>HTML Element - em</h1>
    <p>The paragraph content has an <em>important point</em> which is crucial to understand this topic.<p>
</body>
</html>

Attributes

The following table shows the list of supported and unsupported attributes for the <em> tag.

Attribute Type Details
Element-Specific Attributes The tag <em> doesn't have any element-specific attributes.
Global Attributes Like all other HTML tags, the tag <em> supports the HTML Global Attributes.
Event Attributes The tag <em> also supports the HTML Event Attributes.

Browser Compatibility

The tag <em> is supported in all modern browsers.

  • Google Chrome 1+
  • Internet Explorer or Edge 2+
  • Firefox 1+
  • Apple Safari 1+
  • Opera 2.1+

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