b (HTML element)

Description

The b (short for bold) element simply styles the text it encloses in a bold typeface—assuming it’s not already presented a bold typeface—but offers no semantic meaning about the contained text.

While the b element isn’t deprecated—even in XHTML 1.1—its use is declining, as in many cases it’s more appropriate to use either an emphasis (em) or strong emphasis (strong) element instead.

The example above would appear as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. An example of b in action

Use This For …

This element is used to mark up text which needs to be stylistically offset from the normal prose in a way that doesn’t confer any extra importance on that text. The b element should, therefore, be used only as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. For the examples above, it’s preferable to use a b element rather than a span with a bold style applied through CSS.

Compatibility

As one of the earliest formatting elements, b has full browser support.