CSS: How to Bold Text – A Simple Guide for Beginners

Making text bold is one of the most basic and widely used text formatting techniques in web design. Whether you want to emphasize a heading, highlight a keyword, or make your content stand out, bold text plays a key role in improving readability and visual hierarchy.

In this blog post, you’ll learn how to bold text using CSS in different ways — from applying styles to entire blocks to targeting specific parts of a sentence.

Table of Contents

✅ Method 1: Using `font-weight` Property

The most direct way to bold text in CSS is with the font-weight property.

🧾 Example:

<p class="bold-text">This text is bold using CSS.</p>

.bold-text {
  font-weight: bold;
}

🧠 Explanation:

font-weight: bold; is the CSS equivalent of the  or  tag in HTML.
It makes the text heavier and more prominent.

🎯 Method 2: Use `font-weight` with Numeric Values

CSS allows more control over the boldness using numeric values.

.medium-text {
  font-weight: 500; /* Medium boldness */
}
.semi-bold {
  font-weight: 600;
}
.extra-bold {
  font-weight: 800;
}

ℹ️ Font weight values typically range from 100 (thin) to 900 (extra bold). Availability depends on the font you’re using.

✍️ Method 3: Inline CSS (Quick Approach)

You can also bold text using inline styles, useful for quick changes or small projects.

<p style="font-weight: bold;">This is bold text using inline CSS.</p>

⚠️ While inline CSS is functional, it’s best to use external or internal stylesheets for larger projects for better maintainability.

📌 HTML Tags vs CSS

Method	Use CSS	Use HTML
Inline	✅	`<b>` or `<strong>`
Class-based	✅	`<span class="bold-text">`
Style tag	✅	`<style>` in `<head>`

You can still use  and  in HTML for bold text, but CSS gives you more flexibility, control, and consistency across your entire website.

🧪 Bold Only Part of the Text

Use a  element and apply the bold style only to a portion of the content.

<p>This is a <span class="bold-text">bold word</span> in a sentence.</p>

.bold-text {
  font-weight: bold;
}

🧠 Tips for Using Bold Effectively

Use bold text to highlight key information, not everything.
Combine bold with color or spacing for better impact.
Check your font to ensure it supports various font-weight levels.

✅ Final Thoughts

Bold text is an essential part of web typography, helping draw attention and organize content visually. With CSS, you gain full control over when, where, and how much boldness you apply — without cluttering your HTML.

Use font-weight confidently and responsibly to create clean, accessible, and engaging web pages.

✅ Method 1: Using font-weight Property