CSS font-style: The Font Style Property
The CSS font-style property specifies the style of the font for HTML elements, including normal, italic, and oblique.
How to Use CSS font-style
The font-style property specifies the style of the font in CSS and works with any text-based HTML element. As values, font-style accepts normal, italic, or oblique.
css
/* Apply italic style */
p {
font-style: italic;
}
/* Apply oblique style */
h1 {
font-style: oblique;
}
/* Set style to normal */
footer {
font-style: normal;
}
When to Use CSS font-style
Making Text Italic in CSS
You can use the font-style property to make quotations or certain phrases italic, improving readability for lengthy articles.
css
.quote {
font-style: italic;
}
Emphasizing Keywords
In academic writing, you can use italics to emphasize key terms or phrases when you first introduce them.
css
.key-term {
font-style: italic;
}
Artistic Styling
You can use italics to add a unique aesthetic touch to headers, titles, or any text that needs artistic styling.
css
.title {
font-style: italic;
}
Examples of Using CSS font-style
News Websites
A news website might make quotes italic to make them stand out from the narrative.
css
blockquote {
font-style: italic;
}
Book Review Websites
Book review websites often italicize book titles within their content to set them apart from the surrounding text.
css
.cite-book {
font-style: italic;
}
Online Programming Tutorials
Programming tutorials like Mimo might italicize comments in code examples to distinguish them from the executable code.
css
.comment {
font-style: italic;
color: #6a737d;
}
Learn More About CSS font-style
Interplay with Font-Weight
You can combine font-style with font-weight to enhance text emphasis without altering text structure.
css
emphasis {
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
}
Advanced Text Effects
You can also pair font-style with other CSS properties like text-transform and text-decoration. By combining text effects, you can create visually distinct sections within your content.
css
.fancy-text {
font-style: italic;
text-decoration: underline;
text-transform: uppercase;
}
The Font Shorthand Property
Using the font shorthand, you can define CSS styles for font-related properties with a single property. The shorthand allows you to set font-style, font-weight, font-size, line-height, and font-family. This makes font useful for applying multiple font-related styles to the same element while optimizing for readability.
css
.body-text {
font: italic bold 16px/1.5 Arial, sans-serif;
}
CSS Italic vs. Oblique Font Styles
Italics and oblique styles are similar but have distinct differences in typography. Italic typefaces use unique character shapes, offering more than just a slanted version of a font. Often, italic font styles include stylistic nuances like cursive font elements. Oblique styles are essentially a regular font slanted at an angle, without any unique character adaptations.
Italics are useful for emphasis in text and highlighting quotes, important terms, or foreign words. Oblique styles are a good choice when no italic version of a typeface is available.
css
p.quote {
font-style: italic; /* Preferred for formal emphasis on quotes */
}
p.comment {
font-style: oblique; /* Modern emphasis, suitable for digital interfaces */
}
The HTML Tag and CSS font-style
Like the CSS font-style property, the HTML <i> tag also makes text on a web page italic. However, using only CSS to style elements helps you keep structure (HTML) separate from presentation (CSS). Also, misuse of the <i> tag can lead to other issues, like confusing search engines and screen readers.
Instead of <i>, consider using a <span> tag and a CSS class to italicize phrases.
html
<p>The word <span class="italic">al dente</span> comes from Italian culinary terminology.</p>
css
.italic {
font-style: italic;
}