Underlining

Underlining was a common way to emphasise text in the age of the typewriter – simply because there were few other options using that technology.

Today, reserve underlining for hyperlinks rather than for emphasis. The underlining crosses letters, which can impair legibility unnecessarily when bold is now available for emphasis.

Hyperlinks

Underline live links in web or onscreen content

Please visit webconnect.com.

Underlining remains the most conventional formatting for live hyperlinks. Guidelines on web accessibility recommend it because it makes links stand out well on screen.

You can also use colour to distinguish links from standard text. But you shouldn’t use colour alone as it may not be clear to people with low vision.

At the same time, don’t underline web or email addresses in print content. There’s no way the reader can click on that, so you are better off making the text clean and legible.

In printed content	In digital content
Look it up at australianstyleguide.com.	Look it up at australianstyleguide.com.

Emphasis

Use bold rather than underlining to make words stand out

In body text, underlining can:

interfere with the reader’s sense of letter shapes
suggest a link that’s not there
disappear beneath tracked changes if you’re in review mode.

Bolding is a much better choice to emphasise occasional words or phrases.

Please send your response including evidence to support your claim to [email protected].

Please send your response including evidence to support your claim to [email protected].

For headings, bolding and font size should be your go-to options to build a visual hierarchy.

If you want to separate sections and headings with a line, use a border rather than underlining. A border adds space between the text and the line so that the line does not interfere with the letters. Make sure the border runs the full width of the page.