What is the proper use case for html element?

Question

At first this question seem simple, from all the real life examples I have seen, is used for displaying icons. For example the twitter bootstrap icons.

However, when I search tag in google, the w3c school says is for italic text.

I am confused, if is used for italic text, why is everyone using it for icons? What is the proper use of this tag??

What about [going to the source](http://www.w3.org/TR/html-markup/i.html#i)? — Jon, Feb 11 '13 at 15:50
Thank everyone for answering, as you notified I realize that there is already another question for this and it has been answered. So I'll just go ahead and read that. The result I am looking for is really a good way to represent icons, since a lot of big names are using the tag out side of the spec it creates confusion. — Xavier_Ex, Feb 11 '13 at 16:04

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:51

5

It should be used to make text styled italic. Most semantic uses for italic text are , as it is supported by screen-readers for emphasis.

 and  are slowly going out of fashion in favour of using CSS to style text, and preserving  and  for accessibility reasons.

I guess that it was selected for icons since it is the closest element and makes alphabetic sense (i.e. i = icon).

answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:51

BenM

52,573
26
113
168

During recent studies I also learn that using for icons is a bad idea. HTML should contain less non-semantic contents and icons being part of it. Should use css pseudo elements to display icons whenever possible. – Xavier_Ex Apr 15 '13 at 21:24

Darren · Answer 2 · 2013-02-11T15:59:47.243

2

<i>  was the old way to make text italic in HTML.

The tag has now been redefined in HTML5 and I believe TwitterBootstrap just used this convention for icons but it is definitely not a standard way to do icons.

http://w3.org/International/questions/qa-b-and-i-tags

edited Feb 11 '13 at 15:59

answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:51

Darren

68,902
24
138
144

4

Which specification deprecated the i element? – Quentin Feb 11 '13 at 15:53
http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-b-and-i-tags - while it doesn't explicity state deprecated I believe the tags should not be used for italic, especially since the HTML 5 specification has redefined the meaning of – Darren Feb 11 '13 at 15:57

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:51

2

Because HTML has become perverted over the ages.

Official "proper use" in HTML 4.01 is for italic text.

answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:51

SBoss

8,845
7
28
44

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 11 '13 at 15:52

The  tag is discouraged, because it provides no semantic indication about why the text is italic.

To display italic text, the  tag should be used. (or a different tag with appropriate semantic meaning, combined with CSS)

More recently, people have started using  tags for icons, because i stands for icon.

What is the proper use case for html element?

4 Answers4