- From: Philip & Le Khanh <Philip-and-LeKhanh@Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org>
- Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 14:42:30 +0100
- To: www-html@w3.org, public-html@w3.org
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > HTML 4.01 does something rather odd in that it fails to define the > interpretation or rendering of <i> normatively at all: > > http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/graphics.html#edef-I I cannot derive that inference from the passage you cite at all. It starts with the words "15.2.1 Font style elements: the TT, I, B, BIG, SMALL, STRIKE, S, and U elements". Thus it is clearly stating that these elements denote font style. It then goes on to say >> Rendering of font style elements depends on the user agent. The following is an informative description only. >> >> TT: Renders as teletype or monospaced text. >> I: Renders as italic text style. >> B: Renders as bold text style. >> BIG: Renders text in a "large" font. >> SMALL: Renders text in a "small" font. >> STRIKE and S: Deprecated. Render strike-through style text. >> U: Deprecated. Renders underlined text. > So if it's false to say that <i> implies emphasis in standard HTML 4.01, > it's also not strictly true to say that <i> indicates italic. <i> can't "indicate italic", since not all fonts have an italic variant; it may well indicate slanted or oblique instead. Yes, there is no "normative" statement to this effect : but clearer guidance from the informative prose would be hard to find. Philip Taylor
Received on Sunday, 6 May 2007 13:42:30 UTC