Template:Strong

{{{1}}}

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

This template is used in system messages, and on approximately 946,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages.
Changes to it can cause immediate changes to the Wikipedia user interface.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Please discuss changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This template marks text as important, serious, or urgent using the HTML <strong> tag. It usually renders in bold, but there is additional significance explained in § Purpose.

Purpose

{{strong}} makes it faster and easier to apply the <

semantic markup

, i.e. markup that conveys meaning or context, not just visual appearance.
a few other uses.  The average reader and average editor may be unaware of this distinction as it is unimportant most of the time, but editors who understand it can use this template as a baseline insurance against accidental replacement by bots and human editors, as well as to add web accessibility
.

Usage
{{strong|important text}}
or, if the important text contains an equals sign:

{{strong|1=important text}}
These both render as:

important text
It is safest to always use the |1= syntax.

Optional parameters
Advanced HTML values can be passed through the template to the HTML code:

|role= takes a WAI-ARIA role; adds role="rolename" to the HTML code
|class= takes a class name (or multiple class names, separated by spaces); adds class="classname[s]" to the HTML code
|style= takes inline CSS input; adds style="CSS directive[s]" to the HTML code
|id= takes a valid, unique HTML id (must begin with an alphabetic letter); adds id="name" to the HTML code
|title= takes text and displays it as a pop-up "tooltip" when the cursor hovers over the {{strong}} span. This text cannot be marked up in any way.
Use cases
Further information: Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Scannability
This template is made to mark important words or phrases in a text, in a way that is (unlike simply boldfacing it) 
semantically meaningful markup. With this technique, the important text strongly stands out from the rest in most if not all visual browsers and some text-to-speech screen readers (which usually ignore purely typographic boldfacing), and can also be parsed by user agents and other software as definitively indicating importance, not just some typographic boldface effect for appearance's sake. It should therefore only be used very sparingly in articles to highlight the most important words or phrases in the entire article (and, rarely in encyclopedic writing, to represent relative importance). Use of this template has a strong effect on scannability
, drawing the eye from elsewhere on the page to words marked up with the template.
Typical uses on Wikipedia:

In the MOS:BOLDSYN recommend regular bolding.^[1]

After the lead, it can be used to highlight crucial terms of importance only slightly secondary to that of the article title and its synonyms. For example, the article on a viral infection might use {{strong}} to highlight the names of two identified strains of the disease in a "Varieties" section, as an aid to scannability. If such crucial terms are redirected terms, the style guideline at MOS:BOLDREDIRECT
 recommends formatting boldface as in the article title.
In unusual cases (most often direct quotations) it is used to represent contextually important text, if the passage were spoken rather than written (e.g., because it indicates shouting).
Outside articles, it can be used (but as of July 2021[update] isn't yet common) in polls, XfD processes, RfX votes, and similar comments and debates where users indicate that they approve of or disagree with a view or proposal. Example: "Support, because of this and that reasons [...]" or "Oppose, because of this and that reasons [...]". However, please note the use of templates in voting is generally discouraged.
When this template should not be used
Because {{strong}} is strictly for semantic (meaningful) importance, it should not be used for layout, typography conventions and such. In these different cases, bold '''...''' (which resolves to <b>...</b> in the browser or other user agent) should be used instead.  It also should not be used when the text to which it is applied is boldfaced for some other reason (e.g., it is part of a heading); in such cases use {{em}} instead.  Avoid using {{strong}} in non-quoted sentences that end in an exclamation point. And it is usually excessive to use it on terms that are Wikilinked, since the link markup acts to indicate importance itself.

See also
{{strongbad}} – same but red
{{stronggood}} – same but green
{{em}} – for italic rather than bold semantic emphasis
Notes


^ The use of this template has been briefly discussed in 2018 and in 2022.


quote}} but without quote markup
 {{kbd}}  user input  To indicate user input
 {{key press}}  Ctrl+x  To indicate specific-keystroke input, including combinations
 {{key top}}  Left shift  Similar; includes more symbols, but does not directly support combinations
 {{button}}  Don't save  To indicate a button in a user interface
 {{samp}}  example output  To indicate sample or example output


The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Strong/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (edit | diff) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.

[1] The use of this template has been briefly discussed in 2018 and in 2022.

[1]

quote}} but without quote markup
{{kbd}}	`user input`	To indicate user input
{{key press}}	`Ctrl`+`x`	To indicate specific-keystroke input, including combinations
{{key top}}	`Left shift`	Similar; includes more symbols, but does not directly support combinations
{{button}}	`Don't save`	To indicate a button in a user interface
{{samp}}	`example output`	To indicate sample or example output