Why <big> tag is not in HTML5 while <small> tag exists ?

Last Updated : 24 Jun, 2020

The <big> tag was discontinued in HTML5 while <small> tag is still in handy because <small> tag is frequently used to represent small prints like footnotes, copyright notices, comments etc. Many alternatives for <big> tag are already available such as <h1>, <h2> and so on. In HTML5 instead of using <big>, you can use CSS to create larger texts.

<big> Tag: The HTML <big> tag makes the one size bigger font in the HTML document. Small is converted to medium, medium is converted to large and similarly large is converted to x-large.

Syntax:

<big> Text... </big>

Example:

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html> 
  
<head> 
    <style> 
        div { 
            font-weight: bold; 
            color: green; 
        } 
    </style> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    This is normal text: 
    <div>GeeksforGeeks</div> 
    <br></br> 
    This is bigger text: 
    <div><big>GeeksforGeeks</big></div> 
</body> 
  
</html> 

Output:

<small> Tag: The HTML <small> tag defines smaller text. It makes text one font smaller than the available text. x-large is converted to large, large is converted to medium, and similarly medium is converted to small.

Syntax:

<small> Text... </small>

Example:

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html> 
  
<head> 
    <style> 
        div { 
            font-weight: bold; 
            color: green; 
        } 
    </style> 
</head> 
  
<body> 
    This is normal text: 
    <div>GeeksforGeeks</div> 
    <br></br> 
  
    This is smaller text: 
    <div><small>GeeksforGeeks</small></div> 
</body> 
  
</html> 