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HTML HTML Text Paragraphs and Headlines

Posted by Myroslav Tkachenko
Myroslav Tkachenko
10,581 Points

What is the proper name for the <h1>-<h6> tags?

W3C says it's "heading", Nick says it's "headline". Which one is preferred? Thanks :)

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

cc: Nick Pettit

4 Answers

Wayne Priestley
Wayne Priestley
19,579 Points

Hi Myroslav,

The h1 to h6 tags are indeed called heading. Nick is referring to the use of a h1 tag as a headline.
I can see how that would be confusing for some people.

Heading tags are used for a title, subtitle or any part of text on a page you want to give more emphasis too..

Headline, the most important items of news in a newspaper or a broadcast news bulletin are known as the headlines, so a headline of, SALE NOW ON!! would have a h1 heading tag. A sub header to that could be: Lasts three days, and that could have a h2 heading.

I have no idea if I've made that more or less confusing for you Myroslav, let me know. Hope this helps.

Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points
Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points

Heading.

Myroslav Tkachenko
Myroslav Tkachenko
10,581 Points
Myroslav Tkachenko
Myroslav Tkachenko
10,581 Points

Thanks, Adam and Wayne! I asked this question mostly by intention, because Nick didn't use the term "heading" at all, so I decided to bring some more attention to it.

Wayne Priestley
Wayne Priestley
19,579 Points

It was a good question.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

That is actually an intentional choice by Nick Pettit

These days the term headline isn't as popular as it once was, but I still use it because the alternative is to call it a* "heading"* as it's referred to in the W3C documentation. There's already a header element and a head element, so the term isn't doing us any favors, especially for beginners.

From: a forum reply by Nick Pettit in a thread last year regarding an earlier HTML course

Simon Parker
Simon Parker
301 Points
Simon Parker
Simon Parker
301 Points

i have always referred to them as header tags. although this was changed by HTML 5 including an actual <header> tag

its normally acceptable to refer to them as h1 tags or h4 tags. literally saying the letter "h" then the number following it. most designers and or developers will understand this.