HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
4.5.5. The <s> Tag (Deprecated)
The
<s>
tag is an abbreviated form of the
<strike>
tag supported by all
current browsers even though it is deprecated in HTML 4 and XHTML.
In other words, the "s" stands for shy: don't use it;
<s>
will go away,
eventually.
4.5.6. The <small> Tag
The
<small>
tag works just like its
<big>
counterpart (see [
The <big>
Tag, 4.5.2
]), except it decreases the size of text instead of increasing it.
If the enclosed text is already at the smallest size supported by the font
model,
<small>
has no effect.
As you can with
<big>
, you can nest
<small>
tags to sequentially shrink
text. Each
<small>
tag makes the text one size smaller than the contain-
ing
<small>
tag, to a limit of size 1.
4.5.7. The <strike> Tag (Deprecated)
The popular browsers put a line through ("strike through") text that ap-
pears inside the
<strike>
tag and its
</strike>
end tag. Presumably, it
is an editing markup that tells the reader to ignore the text passage,
reminiscent of the days before typewriter correction tape. You'll rarely,
if ever, see the tag in use today: it is deprecated in HTML 4 and XHTML,
just one step away from complete elimination from the standard.
4.5.8. The <sub> Tag
The text contained between the
<sub>
tag and its
</sub>
end tag gets
displayed half a character's height lower, but in the same font and size
as the current text flow. Both
<sub>
and its
<sup>
counterpart are useful
for math equations and in scientific notation, as well as with chemical
formulæ.
