Shaun McCance
shaunm@gnome.org 2008-2009
Emphasize important text.

# Énfasis

    mal_inline_em = element em {
      mal_attr_link ?,
      attribute style { xsd:NMTOKENS } ?,
      attribute * - (mal:* | local:*) { text } *,

      mal_inline
    }

Use the `em` element to emphasize text. You may use `em` to stress certain words in a sentence. Do not use `em` to effect a particular typographic style, since it may be rendered differently by different display tools.

# Notas

The `em` element can contain a mixture of text and any general inline elements.

The `em` element can occur in any general inline context, including inside most inline elements, some basic block elements, and certain informational elements.

The `em` element can link to other pages or documents. See for more information.

The `style` attribute takes a space-separated list of style hints. Processing tools should adjust their behavior according to those style hints they understand.

The `em` element can have attributes from external namespaces. See for more information on external-namespace attributes.

# Ejemplos

Use `em` to stress a word in a sentence:

You should <em>never</em> run a graphical application as root.

You should never run a graphical application as root.

Use `em` to mark the first occurance of a term:

Note that <em>accelerators</em> are different from <em>mnemonics</em>.

Note that accelerators are different from mnemonics.

# Processing Expectations

Emphasized text is traditionally presented in an italic or oblique font. Italic and oblique fonts stress a portion of text without making it stand out. By contrast, bold text tends to draw the eye, which can be distracting when reading long passages of text. In scripts without a distinction between roman and italic type styles, it may still be possible to use an oblique font or some other font variation. Bold text may be used if necessary.

Underlining should be avoided completely, since it hurts the legibility of the text. This problem is especially pronounced in scripts which place diacritical marks below the text. In these scripts, underlining can render the text completely illegible.

# Comparison to Other Formats

The `em` element is similar to the `emphasis` element in DocBook. Athough DocBook does not normatively specify a means of controlling the presentation, most DocBook display tools allow writers to set the `role` attribute to `bold` or `strong` to specify bold text. No such recommendation is made for Mallard.