emph

Emph is a term used in various markup and typesetting systems to designate that a portion of text should be given prominence or emphasis. The exact syntax and rendering vary by system, but the core concept is to mark content as more significant than surrounding text. Emphasis can influence both visual styling and accessibility, depending on the platform.

In TeX and LaTeX, emphasis is implemented with the command \emph{...}. The emphasis state toggles: text inside \emph{...} is rendered in emphasis, typically italics, and if the content inside is already emphasized, the text may revert to a normal style to avoid cumulative emphasis. For example, \emph{this is emphasized} will usually appear in italics, and nested emphasis returns to a non-emphasized appearance.

In HTML, emphasis is expressed with the <em> element. The <em> tag semantically marks content as emphasized, and browsers typically render it in italics. Screen readers treat emphasized content as more prominent, which can affect how the text is conveyed to users with visual impairments. The corresponding decorative styling can be overridden with CSS, but the semantic meaning remains important.

Beyond LaTeX and HTML, emph is a common naming convention in programming libraries, content management systems, and templating languages for a function or directive that applies emphasis to a string or element. Its exact behavior depends on the platform, but the intent is to distinguish the marked text from ordinary content.

See also: emphasis, italics, markup languages, accessibility.