This element only includes the [global attributes](/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes).

- Use the `<b>` for cases like keywords in a summary, product names in a review, or other spans of text whose typical presentation would be boldfaced (but not including any special importance).

- Do not confuse the `<b>` element with the {{HTMLElement("strong")}}, {{HTMLElement("em")}}, or {{HTMLElement("mark")}} elements. The {{HTMLElement("strong")}} element represents text of certain _importance_, {{HTMLElement("em")}} puts some emphasis on the text and the {{HTMLElement("mark")}} element represents text of certain _relevance_. The `<b>` element doesn't convey such special semantic information; use it only when no others fit.

- Similarly, do not mark titles and headings using the `<b>` element. For this purpose, use the {{HTMLElement("Heading_Elements", "h1")}} to {{HTMLElement("Heading_Elements", "h6")}} tags. Further, stylesheets can change the default style of these elements, with the result that they are not _necessarily_ displayed in bold.

- It is a good practice to use the [`class`](/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes#class) attribute on the `<b>` element in order to convey additional semantic information as needed (for example `<b class="lead">` for the first sentence in a paragraph). This makes it easier to manage multiple use cases of `<b>` if your stylistic needs change, without the need to change all of its uses in the HTML.

- Historically, the `<b>` element was meant to make text boldface. Styling information has been deprecated since HTML4, so the meaning of the `<b>` element has been changed.

- If there is no semantic purpose to using the `<b>` element, you should use the CSS {{cssxref("font-weight")}} property with the value `"bold"` instead in order to make text bold.

```html

<p>

This article describes several <b class="keywords">text-level</b> elements. It

explains their usage in an <b class="keywords">HTML</b> document.

</p>

Keywords are displayed with the default style of the

<b>element, likely in bold.</b>

```

### Result

{{EmbedLiveSample("Examples")}}

<table class="properties">

<tbody>

<tr>

<th scope="row">

<a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Content_categories"

>Content categories</a

>

</th>

<td>

<a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Content_categories#flow_content"

>Flow content</a

>,

<a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Content_categories#phrasing_content"

>phrasing content</a

>, palpable content.

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">Permitted content</th>

<td>

<a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Content_categories#phrasing_content"

>Phrasing content</a

>.

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">Tag omission</th>

<td>None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">Permitted parents</th>

<td>

Any element that accepts

<a href="/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Content_categories#phrasing_content"

>phrasing content</a

>.

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">Implicit ARIA role</th>

<td>

<code

><a href="/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Roles/generic_role"

>generic</a

></code

>

</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">Permitted ARIA roles</th>

<td>Any</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th scope="row">DOM interface</th>

<td>{{domxref("HTMLElement")}}</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

{{Specifications}}

{{Compat}}

- Other elements conveying text-level semantics: {{HTMLElement("a")}}, {{HTMLElement("em")}}, {{HTMLElement("strong")}}, {{HTMLElement("small")}}, {{HTMLElement("cite")}}, {{HTMLElement("q")}}, {{HTMLElement("dfn")}}, {{HTMLElement("abbr")}}, {{HTMLElement("time")}}, {{HTMLElement("code")}}, {{HTMLElement("var")}}, {{HTMLElement("samp")}}, {{HTMLElement("kbd")}}, {{HTMLElement("sub")}}, {{HTMLElement("sup")}}, {{HTMLElement("i")}}, {{HTMLElement("mark")}}, {{HTMLElement("ruby")}}, {{HTMLElement("rp")}}, {{HTMLElement("rt")}}, {{HTMLElement("bdo")}}, {{HTMLElement("span")}}, {{HTMLElement("br")}}, {{HTMLElement("wbr")}}.

- [Using \<b> and \<i> elements (W3C)](https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-b-and-i-tags)