Shouldn't both be removed? or is it means we should use <small>? Why <big> is removed but <small> is not? What is the problem with <big> which is not a problem of <small>?
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259answers:
3
+5
A:
<small> is used more frequently, for footnotes and such...with <h1>, <h2> and <h3> there just wasn't a use for <big>, hence why it's removed.
Nick Craver
2010-02-14 03:15:48
"<small> is used more frequently, for footnotes and such...with <h1>, <h2> and <h3>" could you give more details on this?
metal-gear-solid
2010-02-14 03:33:54
This doesn't quite cut it. Tags such as `<center>` or `<font>` used to be (and from what I can tell, *still* are) much more popular than `<small>`. Yet, they have been declared as deprecated.
RegDwight
2010-02-14 03:36:56
@Jitendra - Just think about daily web design, I've never needed a header when h1, h2 and h3 wouldn't do the job...but there isn't a great equivalent for the small end of things like footnotes, this is where some developers use `<small>`, I prefer a `<span>` or a `<p>`, but a lot of developers use `<small>` meaning removing it would have much more of an impact than removing `<big>`. Also keep in mind that although they're not "in the spec" browsers will probably still support both for some time.
Nick Craver
2010-02-14 03:38:06
@RegDwight - I agree they should **all** be removed, don't get me wrong. I'm just illustrating why it wasn't, not that I agree with it. From the docs: "The small element now represents small print (for side comments and legal print)." http://dev.w3.org/html5/html4-differences/
Nick Craver
2010-02-14 03:40:19
@Nick Craver: that quote from the docs actually supports the very point I'm trying to make. The `<small>` tag is kept because it has a semantic value (side comments and legal print), *not* because it is popular (which, again, it even isn't when compared to some of the other tags that have been dropped). Popularity has nothing to do with this.
RegDwight
2010-02-14 03:50:12
A:
You should send an email to the HTML5 working group mailing list and ask for their opinion. The email is whatwg [at] whatwg [dot] org
Marius
2010-02-14 03:16:19
+15
A:
Remember, the tags are meant to be semantic, not presentational. There is such a thing in English as "fine print". This is what the small tag represents. There is no analogous concept of "big print" except for a header, which is already covered by seven other tags.
Chuck
2010-02-14 03:23:00
+1. Excellent point about semantics and clearly the best answer so far.
RegDwight
2010-02-14 03:30:29