[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

Some books contain big chunks of text in italics [...]. Or a character's thoughts might be italicized [...]. [...] If you enclose the word to be stressed in <em> tags, it will be italicized and appear indistinguishable from the text that surrounds it.

Like Hitch/Turtle said, it's like an ON/OFF switch.

So if there's an <em> or 2nd <i> inside of an outer <i>, then the text would be Roman/normal (straight-up-and-down).

Use this CSS:

i em { font-style: normal; }
i i { font-style: normal; }

and see me answering that exact question back in 2020:

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

In Fiction, Styles are also important when marking inner thoughts or "telepathic speaking":

<span class="innerthought">Wow, I did <em>not</em> do good at all.</span>

Note: Italics within italics = not italic (Normal/Roman).

What usually happens is you get this in your Word->HTML:

<i>Wow, I did</i> not <i>do good at all.</i>

Ultimately, you would want to aim towards HTML like this:

<i class="innerthought">Wow, I did <em>not</em> do good at all.</i>

Like I mentioned in Post #16 of this thread, it's easier to imagine it with a different color highlight.

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

A question from a person who knows very little about such things (i.e., me):

This is the ultimate and simplest explanation:

• 2021: "Italics and Bold"

If you're further interested in this <i> vs. <em> stuff, please visit those previously linked topics.

Then do a search for:

• Tex2002ans

My posts did a thorough job breaking down all the questions/examples + describing differences between all the cases:

• Book Titles
• Inner Thoughts
• Ship Names / Newspapers
• "Foreign" words
• Mathematics
• Citations
• Transcripts
• [...]

- - -

Side Note: Here's one more topic to toss on the reading list too:

• 2021: "Why, Sigil, Why? And can I change you?"

- - -

Side Note #2: This <i> vs. <em> "debate" gets rehashed about once a year, with more and more evidence piling up.

Since 2017, there were about 7 in-depth MobileRead topics with tons of examples (and discussions).

The last few built up upon the previous years, so instead of rehashing the same examples again and again, I summarized+brought even more each time.

So when you read that certain people have "NEVER heard of such a case" or have "NEVER seen an example", do not believe them.

They were a part of those discussions, and they've repeated the same exact things about a dozen times.

(And many times it already got answered earlier in the SAME EXACT topic!)