CSS: How to Make Text Italic

Styling text is a fundamental part of web design, and one of the most common text styles is italic. Italic text is often used to emphasize a word, denote a citation, or give visual contrast in content.

In this quick guide, you’ll learn how to make text italic using CSS, with practical examples.

✅ Method 1: Using font-style Property

The easiest and most standard way to italicize text in CSS is by using the font-style property.

🔹 Example:

<p class="italic-text">This text is italic.</p>

.italic-text {
  font-style: italic;
}

💡 Explanation:

• font-style: italic; tells the browser to render the font in italics (if the font supports it).

✅ Method 2: Italicizing Inline with style Attribute

For quick inline styling, you can apply the style directly in HTML.

<p style="font-style: italic;">Inline italic text.</p>

Note: This is not recommended for larger projects. External or internal CSS is preferred for maintainability.

✅ Method 3: HTML <em> and <i> Tags (Semantic + Style)

HTML provides semantic tags for emphasizing text:

<p>This is <em>emphasized</em> text.</p>
<p>This is <i>italic</i> text.</p>

• <em> adds emphasis (and italic by default).
• <i> purely makes the text italic without semantic meaning.

Both tags render as italic by default in most browsers, but you can style them further with CSS.

🎨 Customizing Italic Styles

You can also control the angle of the italic style using custom fonts or even simulate it with transform if a font lacks an italic variant.

.italic-simulated {
  transform: skewX(-15deg);
}

🚫 Common Pitfall

If the font you’re using doesn’t have an italic variant, font-style: italic might not show any effect. Make sure your font supports italic styles or use fallback fonts.

🧾 Summary

📌 Final Thoughts

Making text italic in CSS is simple and flexible. Whether you use CSS classes or semantic HTML, the key is choosing the method that best fits your project’s structure and readability.