Bold, Italic, Underline and Other Styling of Words for Emphasis - Writing and Editorial Style Guide

General guidance for highlighting and emphasizing text for the web on the University of Maine System website

The University of Maine System website follows the Associated Press Online Stylebook (External Site). Because the University of Maine System is an institution of higher learning and an institution that prioritizes accessible web content, consistency and accuracy are important. Please review your web content for errors in style, spelling and grammar.

Guidelines about highlighting and emphasizing text with bold, italic and other styling of words can be found below.

Bold text

Bold text, sometimes referred to as emphasized text, should only be used to convey information labels and should always be paired with a colon (:).

Example:

Name: Dr. Jane Smith
Phone: 207-555-5555

Bold may also be used to label a topic within a table or chart without a colon as long as no other non-bold words follow the words which are in bold.

No other use of bold text should be used on the University of Maine System website.

Italic text

Italic text is not used on the University of Maine System website except for in the Content Management training to highlight examples of correct and incorrect usage of words, spelling and terms and on some data tables. Do not italicize words on the System website for general content.

Underlined text

Underlined text is reserved solely for communicating that a text includes a link. Do not underline text unless it is a link to another website, another webpage or linked media on the University of Maine System website.

Capitalization

Capitalization should not be used for emphasis, and only be used when writing out acronyms (which must also be defined and used sparingly).

Other styling of words

Please see our guidance on headings to understand headings styling.