w:em (East Asian Emphasis Mark)

Adds small emphasis marks above or below characters in a run to highlight important East Asian text.

Parent elements

w:rPr

Description

w:em adds emphasis marks (小圏, dots, circles, or commas) rendered above (for horizontal text) or to the right (for vertical text) of each character in the run. Emphasis marks are a traditional East Asian typography convention used to draw attention to key words.

It is defined in ECMA-376 Part 1 §17.3.2.11.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Possible Values	Description
`w:val`	`ST_Em`	`none`, `dot`, `comma`, `circle`, `underDot`	Type of emphasis mark to apply.

Values

Value	Description
`none`	No emphasis mark (removes inherited mark).
`dot`	Small filled dot above/beside each character.
`comma`	Small comma mark above/beside each character.
`circle`	Small open circle above/beside each character.
`underDot`	Small dot below the character (used in some Chinese typography).

Examples

<!-- Dot emphasis marks on a Japanese word -->
<w:r>
  <w:rPr>
    <w:em w:val="dot"/>
  </w:rPr>
  <w:t>重要</w:t>
</w:r>

using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Wordprocessing;

var run = new Run(
    new RunProperties(
        new Emphasis { Val = EmphasisMarkValues.Dot }
    ),
    new Text("重要")
);

Notes

Emphasis marks increase line height because they sit above (or below) the characters.
In Japanese, dot emphasis marks (傍点) are the most common. Circle marks (傍圏) are used in Chinese.
This property is only meaningful for East Asian scripts; it has no visible effect on Latin text in most processors.