Altering 'heading' tag size.

[paora]

Is it okay to put a font style and size inside <h> tags?

Does it make any difference for SE's?

<h1>Heading Tags</h1>

<h1><font face="Arial" size="3">Heading Tags</font></h1>

I see people suggest using CSS so that you don't have huge headings
but do you need to?

[Neal]

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:02:08 GMT, paora <paora@dell.com> wrote:

> Is it okay to put a font style and size inside <h> tags?
> ...
> I see people suggest using CSS so that you don't have huge headings
> but do you need to?

Other than the fact that font elements are antique and you get better bang
for your buck with the CSS, no you don't.

[Neal]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 20:19:28 -0500, Neal <neal413@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 00:02:08 GMT, paora <paora@dell.com> wrote:
>
>> Is it okay to put a font style and size inside <h> tags?
>> ...
>> I see people suggest using CSS so that you don't have huge headings
>> but do you need to?
>
> Other than the fact that font elements are antique and you get better
> bang for your buck with the CSS, no you don't.

Let me get into a little more detail.

If all you want is to make big letters into little letters, it won't
matter. But there are a few things that happen when a browser renders an
<h1>:

1) The font size is about doubled
2) The text is made boldface
3) A "margin" is applied to the element.

Now you can change 1 easily enough. But 2 and 3 cannot be turned off in
HTML. In CSS, however, I can set all 3 of these to whatever values I want.
Ex.: h1 {font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0;}

So from the SEO viewpoint, it doesn't make a difference. From a design
standpoint, however, it's definitely better to use CSS.

[John Bokma]

Neal wrote:

> 1) The font size is about doubled
> 2) The text is made boldface
> 3) A "margin" is applied to the element.

Addition,
4) it's a block element

> Now you can change 1 easily enough. But 2 and 3 cannot be turned off
> in HTML.

Same for 4)

> In CSS, however, I can set all 3 of these to whatever values
> I want. Ex.: h1 {font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0;}

for example display:inline; (from the top of my head)

Bottomline: switch to CSS, your HTML gets smaller, is easier to maintain,
etc.

--
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[Neal]

John Bokma wrote:

> Addition,
> 4) it's a block element

I would have added that, but I figured the likelihood of one's wanting
their heading to be inline rather than block was small.